I have not sodded zoysia, but you should absolutely water it mid day. I suggest breakfast (before the heat begins and while there's still dew on it), lunch (to cool the sod for the afternoon), and dinner (while the sun's still up but not beating directly on it but still warm enough to evaporate water on the grass before sunset). New sod only needs enough moisture to wet the roots and the surface of the underlying soil. You do not need to make the soil soggy underneath. Typically 5-15 minutes is enough depending on how much water your system puts out. You should not need to hand water at all. If your sprinkler system leaves dry spots that need to be hand watered, you'll need to modify your system to get full coverage. Otherwise you'll be hand watering forever. Why did you pick zoysia?

Well that certainly is West Texas. I lived in Plainview north of Lubbock for awhile and they referred to their location as West Texas. Okay... Despite what the promotional material says, I believe your grass is better adapted to the cooler temps and rich soil of the Panhandle than it is to the heat and rubble soil of El Paso. It will be interesting to see how much water it takes to keep it alive. As for getting it established, squishy seems like an awful lot of moisture. This seems to be the year of the rototiller. Where did you get that advice? Generally rototilling is not a good idea for grass. As the fluffed up soil forms a new structure, it will settle unevenly leaving you with a bumpy surface. Wait a full three years before you level it. It takes that long to form a structure. The tilled in compost adds a complexity factor to the way it ultimately will settle. That compost will "evaporate" completely leaving zero residual volume. Same for the peat moss. What I would have done to prep it would have been to ensure the drainage was good by scraping off surface soil, filling low spots, and then putting down the sod. I'm truly anxious to see how this goes. I can't remember anyone from Texas with Reveille turf writing in, so that must mean they don't have any problems with it.

It looks to me like the same grass but for some reason the spot in the middle is fertilized differently. Pick a side and apply organic fertilizer from the light green stuff, down through the middle of the darker green, and beyond about a foot. You can apply as much as you want. I'd say a couple double handfuls at least. Then water that enough to wash it down to the soil level and give it three weeks. If you have a dog or cat that eats dry food, use that to fertilize it. The ingredients in dry pet food are the same as in organic fertilizer, so I'm just trying to save you from asking what kind of organic fertilizer or having an excuse of not being able to find it. If you spill some on the grass, just brush it away a little. You cannot really overdo organics unless you smother the grass with it. That's the reason for using organics instead of synthetic fertilizer. Anyway I'm thinking/hoping the organically fertilized grass will all look the same in 3 weeks to a month. If it does then I suppose there are a couple reasons why that might have happened. All you would have to do ti fix it then is to fertilize the rest of the yard with organics. But this is a diagnostic test to see what the problem is. Oh, do you have a dog? It could be dog urine that caused the extra fertility in the spot. Where do you live? Why did you pick zoysia? The sod should be knit down to the soil by now, so it's time to back off on the watering frequency and start upping the amount. The target watering schedule is one inch applied once a week when temps are in the 90s. You should be able to get there in 6 weeks or so. By the time 6 weeks passes the temps might be in the 80s. The target in the 80s is one inch applied once every 2 weeks.

Thanks for all the tips, so far. Please keep them coming. j4c11, that particular neighor has El Toro, so I plan to avoid it. Not sure which months it is green. Thanks for agreeing that the NTEP numbers are confusing...I was hoping it wasn't just me. hawksster, good tip on choosing the installer and sod separately, and making it work. reeljake, I had no idea Meyer was considered builder grade, so thanks. I've heard good things about Empire, but also that it wasn't reliable during the winter this far north? One of those pieces of conflicting info I came across. I've got a list of sod producers in the state, but there's no general number on that site where I could call and ask about the pros and cons of varieties. Some producers only grow one kind, so they're probably not a good resource for comparisons, either. It's not easy, when it seems the installers have their favorites.