Depressed and Ready to give up. Please help.

[cleanfreak]

Some of you may know, or not, but I have now gone thru my 3rd, yes 3rd, lawn renovation in 4 years. The 1st was the back yard only to deal with erosion control, french drains, etc. The 2nd was an even greater overhaul due to erosion in the back yard with all new soil, re- contouring the yard and re-configuring the way the direction the water flows.
The erosion issue were resolved and new sod was installed. Then the disease came. Brown patch. Severe Brown patch. To the point it killed all of the backyard sod even though I spent over $1000 in chemical treatments to combat the disease.....ironic, it was only the back yard.....the same place I was having erosion issue. For most, you will say it was caused by over watering, draining issues, etc, which are commonly known for causing brown patch......these do not apply to my circumstance. Water issues were corrected and watering techniques are good. I believe the disease was present in the new sod when it was installed, since it only effected exactly what I just installed and not the sides or front yard. But I digress.....

The disease won. Hands down. So I decided to renovate the entire lawn this time. Front, rear, sides, all of it. I had all sod removed from the entire yard. It was sprayed with grass/weed killer and the entire lawn was excavated. I decided to have Zoysia installed this time......

Not knowing exactly what to expect, I noticed several sections of the zoysia sod were a "darker" green compared to the rest of the sod. Now 3 weeks later I have found out it is weeds......and a lot of them.

So $30K later since the first reno and I now have the worst looking yard in the neighborhood and I am ready to give up. Somebody give me some hope, some advice.

[Begotten]

So the only problem now is weeds? We all have to deal with weeds, it's not the end of the world. How bad could it be? Grab some Celsius or whatever the new hotness in primo herbicides is and get it under control.

[Jayhawkmba]

Understood ...been there at times for sure. Which zoysia?

I'd expect some weeds...you have to be smart about pre-em with newly sodded. You can find a few studies on the impact to root dev, online. I have a fert/squirt co and had poa the first spring because they didn't want to treat it with some ....for example.

[cleanfreak]

Thanks for the replies. For some reason my pics did not upload. I will try again later today.

It's bad. Rally bad. Especially for new sod. After hours of research in the forum it appears to be yellow nutsedge and green kyllinga.

[HoosierLawnGnome]

Seems like you just need to get rid of some weeds and get what you want to spread.

If they installed zoysia as plugs, I could see nutsedge coming in strong if it wasn't eradicated beforehand. Green killynga is also some sort of a sedge grass, although I'm not personally familiar with it in my cool season lawn. Sedge grasses will survive glyphosate applications because it kills it too quickly - I imagine that's even more true in a warm climate. Tenacity doesn't work for me here - even though it's listed to control - I've seen it come back. The only things I've gotten to work in my slightly warmer climate are repeat applications of Triclopyr or a sedge - specific herbicide like Sedgehammer. (the latter working the best for sure)

Here's where I'm not familiar with Celsius - I don't know if it works on sedge grasses, but a brief review of the label didn't mention sedge.

Were it me - I'd do 3 things.
1) Kill existing sedge grasses with repeat applications of sedge hammer.
2) Get a good pre-emergent down to prevent more green kyllinga coming in
3) Do a soil test to determine the optimal feeding plan for your turf. I don't see one in the soil forum. You've spent 30K - what's $25?

And in terms of cultural practices I would probably mow higher and keep the turf drier since sedges like wetness.

Since you've struggled with disease, I'd likewise work on preventing that - I would not assume the new species of turfgrass fixed that issue.

One other comment. Lawn contractors. The above would be a very specific program. Very specific. One most lawn companies would never have done. The lawn techs probably don't even know there are sedge specific herbicides - they probably use the same cocktail on everything - which if you have mainly sedge - will only harm your desirable turfgrass and barely touch the weeds.

The question I have is this - do you trust them to do very specific things? You can throw a ton of money away very quickly that they use to unintentionally harm your lawn.

If they come out, spray a generic herbicide to hit normal weeds, fertilize with high Nitrogen - they are basically going to harm your turfgrass and feed the weeds, without really giving the turfgrass what your soil lacks.

My point is that hiring a contractor to come out and "fix" it isn't going to accomplish anything if they aren't smarter than 90% of the others.

[cleanfreak]

Thanks for the replies. The sod was empire Zoysia I believe and I did a full sod install. Here are some pics:







The installer, knowing this is unacceptable, has sprayed to try and kill the weeds. I will try to find out what they used to spray and post progress pics when I can. I will assume it will take more than one treatment.

[HoosierLawnGnome]

Looks like sedge grasses.

Sounds like you've chosen your contractor's program.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Why did you choose centipede over bermuda or St Augustine?

What is your final watering plan?

Did you fertilize any of these sod installations?

[Begotten]

Why did you choose centipede over bermuda or St Augustine?

What is your final watering plan?

Did you fertilize any of these sod installations?

If I were sodding a big new piece of property I probably wouldn't even consider SA because it's more expensive to begin with and you only get about 4/5 the amount of coverage per pallet, and Bermuda is just too high maintenance.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

I assume you are comparing prices to centipede, right? Or are you comparing to seed?

[Begotten]

Sod of course

[tellycoleman]

Umm I hope you are not letting your weeds get to seed are you? In a couple of the pictures I see that you are.
What is your cutting schedule. You can't do that.

[PW405]

Oh god, I hate Sedge!!!! I had some in my first home's backyard. I would pick EVERY bunch, and in a few weeks, more would emerge. I was determined. I kept picking! Then I realized that picking it actually encourages it to spread. Sedgehamer fixed it, but it took about 2 weeks. It was yellowing after 7 days, but after the 2nd weekly mowing, I never noticed it again.

RE: Disease in sod. I had that happen to me. Last year I put down some fescue sod in my backyard. When I was putting it in, I could tell there was some yellowing/browning and I just figured it was part of the process of being sodded. After some research on this forum I determined it was some disease. Hit it with a few treatments of Scott's fungus and it helped clear it up.

Good luck, keep us posted!

[cleanfreak]

Wow. Thanks for all of the replies. It's been a little over a month now since I posted.

Dchal-
Here were I live Bermuda is considered a weed and St. Augustine is just not used and hard to get. Travel another 3 hrs south and St. Augustine is the turf of choice. There is really only 2 choices here. Centipede (used by 80% of folks) and Zoysia. Zoysia is a little more costly and looks about the same as centipede hence the reason centipede is king in my area.

Watering schedule: None at the moment. It has rained every day since installation. Once the afternoon storms stop belting us, it will be 3 days per week.

Fertilizer: On the first couple of installations, only Milo was used. On this installation, the installer has been very helpful and he has vowed to 'make this right'. So he has done a fertilizer treatment and now I am on his schedule for fertilizer. I am unsure at the moment what he is using. Being he lives a few houses down and his zoysia lawn looks immaculate, I'm hoping he can provide me the same results.

Since installation the installer has done several weed treatments including sedge hammer. The turf seems to be filling in nicely and the weeds are almost gone. It still has a long way to go, but at least I have a little hope.

Some bad news tho, the same disease that took my other turf has tried to reappear in the zoysia. Thankfully, I believe we caught it in time and it has had several treatments of fungicide and seems to have suppressed for now.

Finally, even after several weed treatments as stated above, I have one pesky weed that seems to survive my weed attack. Please see picture and help me identify this pesky rascal and a treatment to kill him one and for all.

Thanks to all.

[imauafan]

Crabgrass?