Basics of Lawn Care After reading numerous books and magazines on lawn care, caring for lawns at seven houses in my life, and reading numerous forums where real people write in to discuss their successes and failures, I have decided to side with the real people and dispense with the book and magazine authors. I don't know what star their planet rotates around but it's not mine. With that in mind, here is the collected wisdom of the Internet savvy homeowners and lawn care professionals summarized in a few words. If you follow the advice here you will have conquered at least 50% of all lawn problems. Once you have these three elements mastered, then you can worry about weeds (if you have any), dog spots, and striping your lawn. But if you are not doing these three things, they will be the first three things suggested for you to correct. Watering Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an hour in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. Do not spread this out and water for 10 minutes every day. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. If that does not work, then you might have to water more than once per week during the summer's hottest period. Deep watering grows deep, drought resistant roots. Infrequent watering allows the top layer of soil to dry completely which kills off many shallow rooted weeds. You will have to learn to judge when to water your own lawn. If you live in Las Vegas your watering will be different than if you live in Vermont. Adjust your watering to your type of grass, humidity, wind, and soil type. It is worth noting that this technique is used successfully by professionals in Phoenix, so...just sayin.' The other factors make a difference. If you normally water 1 inch per week and you get 1/2 inch of rain, then adjust and water only 1/2 inch that week. Mowing Every week mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. However, bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses will become the most dense when they are mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. In fact there are special mowers that can mow these grasses down to 1/16 inch. Dense grass shades out weeds, keeps the soil cooler, and uses less water than thin grass. Tall grass can feed the deep roots you developed in #1 above. Tall grass does not grow faster than short grass nor does it look shaggy sooner. Once all your grass is at the same height, tall grass just looks plush. Fertilizing Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 5 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. Follow the directions on the bag and do not overdo it. Too little is better than too much. At this point you do not have to worry about weed and feed products - remember at this point you are just trying to grow grass, not perfect it. Besides once you are doing these three things correctly, your weed problems should go away without herbicide. ------------------ Okay it's me now. Looks like too watering too frequently. At this time of year once a week might be too often. I'd be looking at every 14 days or more. Don't feel the soil to determine the watering. Watch for the grass to dry out. If it is not drying out, then wait. Your soil should be dry and hard for many days before you water again. Your lawn is either fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, or both. With that location and the proximity of the shade, any Kentucky bluegrass will die out. That is a fescue area because of the wall blocking half the day's sunlight. With that in mind you should be raising your mowing height all the way to the top. The reel mower is not great for mowing high. Good for mowing low but that's not your grass. Do not seed this time of year. If you need seed, wait until late August. You cannot have grubs yet. The grubs show up several weeks after the June bugs swarm your porch light. If you don't have any June bugs, then you can't have any grubs. That's not a universal truth but it is fairly useful for most people. And on that line of thought, please don't try to prevent problems you think you might have. Wait until you have the problem. The fungus problem is pretty apparent. I have a suggestion if you are interested in an organic solution. tiemco will disagree based wisely on his experience. My experience is 180 degrees opposite to his. This time I'll wait for him to suggest something.

You should have been keeping the sod moist by watering it LIGHTLY, three times per day, for the first 3 weeks after putting the sod down. It doesn't sound like you were doing that. Regardless, it sounds like it's wet enough now. Zoysia has a fatal flaw in my book. When it goes bad, it doesn't seem to matter what month it went bad, it remains dead looking for the remainder of the season. Then in April (or March for you in FL), it finally comes back like nothing ever happened. So whether your problem was too much water or not enough water, the grass is likely to be "dormant" for the rest of the year. Can you lift any of the squares of sod or are they all knitted down to the soil by new roots? Did you get watering instructions from the sod installer? If so, what were they? Have you measured the output of your sprinklers? You can do that by timing how long it takes your sprinklers to fill several cat food or tuna cans placed around the yard. My sprinkler takes 8 hours to fill the cans. My neighbor's high flow system takes 20 minutes. It all depends on YOUR system. Once you have that time, that will become the time you water every time you need to water. It might seem like a long time to water but you're not going to do it very often. For example I did not water my Texas desert lawn until mid July this year. Why? Because the roots on my lawn were deep enough to capture deeeeeeep water from the occasional rain we got. But my yard might have been an exception for other reasons. Here's the basic watering plan for the US (except for the triangle from Green River, UT down to Palm Springs, CA over to Junction, TX). Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means a full inch at a time. Infrequently means with temps in the 90s or above, once per week. With temps in the 80s, once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, once every 3 weeks. What this does is develop very deep roots which can take advantage of every rain storm for a good long time. It also allows the soil to dry out completely at the surface which prevents new weed seeds from sprouting. Proper watering is quite often the last correction people need to make to get their lawn to the next level of perfection and stop using herbicides to kill weeds. Why did you pick zoysia instead of the more normal bermuda or St Augustine?

I double shared on pic. Sorry. Here's the other pic..

Check the grass to see if the soil is moist. Do this throughout the day. If the soil is dry and hard it needs more water. You should water new sod at least twice a day long enough so it does not dry out. The amount of time watered is meaningless and depends on your sprinkler system. the edges and corners will dry out first. Also, is the grass getting enough direct sunlight for the type of grass you have?