Dear Colleenny,

Thank you very much for your inquiry. This is one of those cases where half-truths abound. Zoysiagrass is a turf species, and a beautiful one at that. By definition of a weed (a plant out of place), it can also be unwanted in a yard. (Half-truth number one.)

A"weed killer", an herbicide designed to kill weeds, is classified as selective or non-selective. If it is selective, it will remove weeds from an area with no or minimal damage to the desired species, in our case grass. A good example of this is 2,4 D or Trimec. If it is non-selective, it will kill anything green. Glyphosate or Roundup is a good example of this type of herbicide.

So, if a nonselective herbicide is sprayed to kill weeds in a zoysiagrass lawn, the zoysiagrass will die. (Half-truth number two.) However, most selective herbicides will do little to no damage to zoysiagrass lawns.

Again, thanks for the question and let me know if you have more.

Respectfully

Trey Rogers
The Yard Doctor

I was dumb and impatient and misread the roundup directions...now a week later the test dandilion areas I sprayed have totally killed huge patches of my beautiful lawn and seems to be spreading...all the way (3 ft) to my clamatis and my rose bush and trees...all a showing signs of discoloration...HELP ME PLEASE, my husband is so mad and so stressed about my goof...and i don't know how to fix it. thanks.

Sorry for you problems Melanie. As you may have found by now, the weed killer has done its job. The only way to correct mistakenly spraying a good plant or area of grass with non-selective weed killer is to immediately spray lots of water on it when the mistake is made. Even then you may just be minimizing the damage. The weed killer you used is a poison to most plants -good or bad- and it is absorbed through the leaves. Once that process has begun (as quickly as 30 minutes) there is no going back.

I have a beautiful health Bluegrass lawn. My neighbor is
plugging zoysia - which I do not want! I had Zoysia at
a previous home. It not as great as people want you to
believe. I had problems with Fungus constantly.
Besides placing a metal border in the ground -- how
can keep this from coming into my yard. I've be told
that Hydrated lime will do the trick?
Thanks!

Hi we have a huge gravel driveway full of weeds and grass. Every year I buy different weed killers and spray and it always comes back within 2 weeks. We have a well so we have to keep that in mind. Do you have any ideas as to what is best product to use and get rid of weeds once and for all?

My lawn service sprayed the yard of zoysia this spring for weeds and it killed the entire yard except for the Bermuda that was mixed in with the zoysia. Is it possible they used the wrong chemicals that would hurt zoysia and not Bermuda?

I planted some Zoysia plugs in my small front yard, 18 mo. ago. It's getting established slowly, but I cannot keep up with the weeds around it. What weed killer can be used that will NOT damage the Zoysia?

I put down zoysia sod last july it both the front and back yard. The front turned out great but the back is nothing but weeds this spring. there is every kind of weed you can think of that is in flordia now in my back yard. Im scared to use a weed killer because I dont want to kill the grass. HELP ME

I've got mondo grass "ophiopogon japonica" coming up in Zoysia grass. I've tried to kill it with MSMA, with not much success yet. Does anyone know of a selective post emerge herbicide that will kill the mondo grass and leave the Zoysia alone?