If it's nothing but shade, you have no choice but cut down a tree or two to allow around 4 hours of sun. 6-8 hours is best for zoysia grass like Palisades or Jamur (coarse type - kinda like mini st augustine). If you are getting 4 hours of direct sun, Palmetto st augustine might be the best unless you're willing to spend a ton on Turf Shadow. Look for Caveliar (sp?) fine bladed zoysia that may be very similar to Turf Shadow.

As long as you cut down trees that will not affect shade on the house, go for it. Last thing I want you to do is take too much shade away from your house during the afternoon. It's just too hot.

We do have shadow turf in front, under the cedar elm. Yes, it cost a fortune. I planted it quite sparsely for that reason and it's taking a loooong time. That area does get a decent amount of sun though. It's shaded, but gets maybe 4 hours of morning sun and a tiny bit of late afternoon sun.

Now I just have to decide which trees to cut! Our neighbors aren't too keen on us cutting the trees much as it cuts down on their shade as well....There are a couple I'd like to get rid of - particularly the one that's fighting with the palm and that would let in a lot more afternoon sun, so maybe this is a good way to convince my husband.

Yeah, shade is pretty critical. We do use our a/c now, but can last quite long without it if we have all doors/windows open with the help of the shade (windows are all 3ftx8ft, at least 2 per room).

That looks pretty shady for most grasses. If St Aug won't cut it, there aren't really any other options for you.

On the plus side, I think you'll be able to make it work. It probably won't be a showcase, but I think it can be a lot better than it is now. One of the "tricks" to growing grass in shade is to make sure everything else is ideal for growing grass. Ok, that really isn't a trick, but it is key. The grass might take a little shade. It won't take shade, compacted soil, low nutrients, bad ph, and too little water. With that in mind, you can start some of the prep work this year and be ready to sprig next spring. Get a soil test, aerate several time, start adding organic matter etc. Over the winter, mulch mow all the leaves in place and let them decompose. Get the neeighbors leaves too if they will let you. The more you can improve the soil this year, the better your spring project will go.

Ok, I paid closer attention today. There's more sun than I realized, particularly on the half closer to the house. It gets a fair amount of sun between noon and 6pm or so, then until the sun goes down only the very front gets sun. It's all filtered, but it does have enough I think....the other half though, next to the neighbor's house is pretty much shady all the time.

We have been mulch mowing, but haven't been adding organic matter or aerating...I didn't want to plant St Augustine as it's so water intensive and we're in a drought prone area. Shadow turf is probably the best option - if I can get it to grow up front, I can use plugs from that to seed the other part. I'm having a hard time visualizing this space.

I have news for you...

Shadow Turf and st augustine (and bermuda)need same amount of water to LOOK DECENT/GOOD. I'm able to go as long as 10-14 days between watering on mine IN FULL SUN during hot and dry spell in the summer so that they still look pretty good. I suppose I can get by once a month and still have decent looking lawn but I want my trees to grow faster for shade so I water lawn anyway. LOL.

Floratam st augustine is BY FAR the most drought tolerant st augustine variety. Almost as good as bermuda, better than all zoysia varieties. However, it only grows in zone 9 and need considerable amount of sun, probably 6 hours of full sun every day as it doesn't have that great of shade tolerance. Floratam recovers about 90% after 2 months of no rain. 2nd best is Palmetto variety at 50%. Zoysia grass is in the 70% range.

Guess where this drought tolerance evaluation was conducted? San Antonio...

Anyway it does help to have sunlight on Turf Shadow if you're wanting them to spread out faster. Have you fertilized them? Try alfalfa pellets or soybean meal and water them in...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was my understanding that St Augustine will die if it's not watered, whereas the 'drought tolerant' varieties simply go dormant. I'm ok with dormant, if that means it comes back again. Is this not correct information?

Zoysia sounds like a good compromise for some of this area. Definitely doesn't get 6 hours of full sun, more like 4.

As for the shadow turf - I did fertilize when I laid it down, but that was in April. I'll try the ones you suggested, or is it too soon to add more? I'm probably going to go ahead and get another tray of plugs if I can find it.