Dtyre, sorry I couldn't tell you what you wanted to hear, but you have two problems to deal with. 1. Your Zoysia is too young and tender to hit with post-emergence. 2. Even if the lawn was mature and established right now, it is likely the temps are too high now to apply post-emergence products right now. Most Post-M's have a narrow temp range or maximum temp they can be applied otherwise they will burn your grass. As for mowing your new Zoysia I am not real familar with Compadre, but I would take it any lower than 1-inch for right now. But by all means keep it mowed regularly to keep the weeds in check and from going to seed. Sounds like you can cut back on water to every other day for now, and after 8-weeks from planting you can go to a regular routine of watering when needed. Good Luck TW

flora_uk, I can still see ungerminated seeds delightedinco, I tried the Scotts EZ Seed too - it sometimes worked, and it's very convenient to use (I like the built-in spreader on the smaller containers - the gardening newbies this product is aimed at are not going to own seed spreaders or roto-tillers, don't know what kind of soil or fertilizer to use, and have no idea what 5 lbs. per 400 feet looks like when spread. But it is so expensive for what you get). I bought it only because Scotts used to have $5-off discounts on it. Pennington has a similar product as part of their Smart Seed line that's a bit cheaper (but not much), although I wonder why they claim much longer germination times than the Scotts product. There's also Scotts Patch Master which is cheaper and I haven't used yet. I think I'm going to try just regular seed, and watering more often (a real pain here - there's no outside garden hose faucets, so I either need to use big watering buckets or run a hose from an indoor faucet. I have a 50' coiled garden hose with a sink-faucet adapter at one end and a trigger sprayer at the other for that purpose). I have a bag of Vigoro Starter Fertilizer 20-27-5, and have applied quite a bit of new seeding soil (of several varieties depending on location) since the ground is mostly hard clay. I did my best to loosen it with a metal gardening rake before adding a new layer of topsoil. Any recommendations as to what type of grass I should use? I'm near Washington DC, which means both humid 100°F+ in the summer and subfreezing icy winters. The big-box stores around here seem to favor tall fescoe, which is also what the combination seed/mulch/fertilizer products use in this market. I like the bright green color, how fast it grows, and its tolerance for all sorts of bad weather, but not the thin straight grass blades that get matted down like cheap carpeting when walked on. The second most popular here seems to be the generically-labeled "sun and shade mix". The real nurseries have more variety to choose from but also higher prices. I don't want anything that goes dormant or turns yellow or brown in the winter. The side yard is in heavy shade due to closely-spaced houses and lots of old trees, but the backyard (which I'm more concerned about since that's the main socializing area) gets alot of sunlight. I also hear some people say I shouldn't even try to grow from seed during the hot summer. But I'd like to have a lawn by fall if possible, when I plan to have a new renter. I could plant sod - but it's inconvenient given how thirsty the stuff is when new (given the water situation I mentioned earlier) and hard to transport for someone with a small car and a bad back. Any ideas?

It's been about 2 months so I thought I'd share a few more photos. Here is what they look like now. I'm pretty happy with their growth. They've started to green up, fill in, and grow taller. Some of them are growing over the top of the 4ft electric wire fence post. I've been sticking with my watering routine of every 7 days, but recently just switched to every 5 days because it's been really hot and dry in my area. The most recent issue has been bag worms. I didn't notice them until were in their final stages, so I've just been picking them off and squishing them. I'll spray next year so hopefully that will take care of them. Any advice on which spray to use? Will I have to keep spraying every year? I'm getting in some more mulch and going to mulch on the outside of the trees where is a little skimpy.

The trees can show similar symptoms both if too wet or too dry. Too much water and the fine roots can die, showing top browning, because the tree is no longer able to absorb water and send it up the vascular system. If it's to dry there's not enough water to send up the vascular system and browning happens there too so you can't really tell by looking. If you have heavy clay soil, you can have the problem of water pooling at the bottom of the hole, called the 'bath tub' effect. The undisturbed soil at the bottom of the hole doesn't let water soak away very fast at all but the loosened soil used to fill around the root ball is more porous so it lets water in easily which then pools at the bottom. So if you have have enough rain or if you water enough to keep the top wet, you can actually drown the root system, because it's retaining water at the bottom of the hole. But water is the easiest thing to check. What the others have said more than once. Just dig down, both around the root ball and inside the root ball, with something narrow like a large spoon of garden trowel. Do this in a few different spots and it will be apparent if the soil is too wet or too dry. You could even did a deeper hole, next to one root ball and see if water is pooling. Again this is if you have heavy clay soil.