Pardon me Engima, but seeing as how zoysia is considered a southern grass, what made you think it would do well in southern Pennsylvania. I am aware that your area might be considered a "transitional" zone....meaning areas across the country from the coast westward enclosing the states of W.Va, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee.....that area, can use a warm season and/or a cool season type grass, even combining them where thought viable. But, being a warm-season grass, what made you think zoysia would be the grass for you. The attributes of that grass aside, like how it is able to stand up to drought, that ability would only apply if your area of Pa did not receive adequate rainfall. I don't think that applies. So why zoysia. You quoted three varieties of Kentucky Bluegrass. Was this recommended by someone in the know. My own thinking on what makes a good grass (and a good lawn) is to plant for whatever nature throws at you in the area you reside. In northern zones thus, a combo of K.B., with added fescue and ryegrass is considered a good idea. Each gives its best when situations arrive. Fescue is good for shade, kentucky blue for sun, ryegrass for standing up to rough treatment such as heavy traffic. To depend on one type of grass has its own set of rules. If something that goes against the K.B.'s happens, then you are 'up the creek' sort of. Instead of believing tha Lowes or Home Depot does not stock good quality grasses, why not speak to a nurseryman about what grasses do well for a home's lawn in your vicinity. Then compare what they have and whether you can buy that particular blend (or not a blend) in the other stores. Usually, one person has a bad experience with what has been bought at the box store, and then makes a most definite opinion that the stores only stock poor grades of grasses. Stores don't usually go out of their way to sell to patrons that which will not invite them back again. Stores deal with suppliers....the same as how some nurseries do. Grass, for the most part, depends on how it is taken care of. There are, however, good quality seeds as well as poor ones. The quick grasses do not usually stand up well to heat of summer or drought that happens irregularly. The good quality grasses can take the heat of the kitchen and bounce back when conditions get better. The other stuff dies quickly. So whatever grass you do buy, buy the best you can afford. Grass can be encouraged to be lusher and thereby stand up to adversity when it happens. But grass will not grow if the soil does not welcome it. So enrich your soil, make the grass want to stick around. Every fall, put a 1/2" - 1" layer of compost or good topsoil over the lawn. Do an overseeding, whether you believe the lawn needs it or not. The more lush you make the lawn, the better it can put up with what can attack it...including grubs. But grubs pretty soon will be going south (deeper) for the winter. The time to take up with them is in the spring when the larvae from this season's population come up for air. In the spring, put a layer 1/2" - 1" of compost (or good topsoil) over the lawn and let it grow up through it. Do this early, as soon as the frost has left the ground. The fall/spring ritual of putting down this layer of topsoil should be considered one of the things to do EVERY YEAR. Winter takes a lot out a lawn..so whatever you can do to enrich the soil the better your lawn will grow. Fertilize regularly---but not too often. Fertilizer can feed the soil and what grows in it.....but do it too much and it will cause short stubby roots, over nitrogenize and otherwise cause poor growth instead of pushing it. It does appear you have a job to do to change over your zoysia to something else....and you may be not making a good choice of change. I'm curious what your neighbors have done --is everybody in your neighborhood growing zoysia and what is their thinking of it. Reading about it, it does appear it has a lot going for it....and a lot not going for it. Generally it is for more southern areas....not particularly suited for where the snow flies.

Alright, I kept the stems moist, first and foremost. I wapped them in wet paper towels until I got home, then I put them right into water. I enjoyed the blooms for a few days while I waited. I hydrated a Jiffy*7 peat pellet and placed about a half inche of perlite in the bottom of a three-inch pot. I trimmed off the flowering top, recut the stem under water and stripped off the bottom set of leaves. I scored the end of the stem, dipped it in rooting powder, shaking off te excess. The cutting went into the peat pellet, and I sqeezed the peat pellet tight around the end of the cutting. Then the cutting and pellet went into the pot on top of the perlite, then I filled up arond the peat pellet with more perlite, to the top of the pellet. Karl mists his with a timer, I kept mine in heavy but dappled shade on a shallow plate. (The plate allowed me to water the cuttings from the bottom. As long as the perlite and peat don't dry out, the water gets absorbed up into the asembly.) I made sure and never let the cuttings dry out, or let them tip over hard. They lost all their old leaves, then began growing new ones. When the new roots start poking out the bottom of the pot, the whole peat pellet is ready to be transplanted into a bigger pot. The peat "pellet" (really more of a blob of peat by now,) keeps the brand new feeder roots from breaking off and killing the fragile new cutting during transplanting. You still want to be very careful. Voila! A healthy measure of grace really helped, too, ha ha! Oh yeah, I put them in gradually more sun as they grew their new leaves. I moved them behind some bigger bands that face east, and this way they got dappled sun, then about an hour or two of "straight" sun, then shade until the next day.

We moved a couple of months ago and I had to let the yard (I can't be called a garden at this point yet) just be... no matter how painful it was. My focus was house house house... it was ours but we had rented it and they turned it into a crack house. Well, we kicked them out and after a month of making it livable we moved. However, the work had only just begun... we removed popcorn from ceilings, replaced fixtures and doors... and we still aren't finished. But my focus has shifted.... causing much distress for my poor DH. (He works a lot right now so the house is all on me) I have been digging out the years of neglect (When he and I began dating he was in a different house, which we lived in prior to this move... a master gardener had lived there prior and all I had to do was maintain it all). The house we are in now was his, but he doesn't bother with anything but mowing the weeds and it has been at least 3 or 4 years since anyone has done anything here other than that. All the beds had been filled with rock, the yard is weeds and sand, it is bad. The good news... we have gorgeous trees and a great spot on a lake... so the potential is there :) Back to the topic of the post, since I started focusing on the yard and my garden in the making the house has gone to hell. There are clothes everywhere, still boxes that didn't get unpacked, spare bed is covered in christmas stuff that needs to go in the attic, no clean dishes to be found, dirt and dust galore... Ugh! My kitchen is covered in potting soil and plant seedlings, cuttings, pots and trays. I don't have a potting bench or anything even close yet, so the kitchen has been converted. My ottoman has become my sort and send for my seed trading, there are baggies of seeds everywhere.. Everywhere! My living room is littered with bubble evies... it is terrible. Best part is, a friend of ours is in need of a place to stay for a little while so he;s moving in this weekend. I am going to go into cleaning shock... and yet I'm still determined to get in some yard work this weekend. We'll see how things turn out... this is my first real garden (of my own) and the first time I've been completely responsible for so much (I'm kinda young still... just finished college and am starting out fresh... but with the love of my life so its all good!). I'm just looking forward to next spring, when I will have been properly prepared and things can really look nice :) Kim (cottage style junkie and newbie)

I agree with jperilloux, just because your cutting has a few leaves doesn't mean it's fully rooted. I had a Maui Beauty that I took out of my pot because it was wrinkled an I couldn't save it, it had several leaves (maybe 5+ on each branch) an it didn't hardly have any roots at all. My Bill Moragne cutting that I planted back in April has 5+ 6-7 inche leaves, but yet it's roots are starting to grow, they're small, no way near a full root ball. Also if you took it out of the pot, you could disturb the tiny fragile young roots. On plumeria101 site, it says it takes about 90 days (3 months) to form a full root ball. Since you just got yours June 5th, they have only been rooting over a month, if you think they need watering or if the dirt is dry, mist the top of the cuttings or water around the rim of the pot sparingly.