New Lawn

Bermuda, St. Augustine, Zoysia, Centipede, Bahia, Paspalum, etc
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Colonel68
Posts: 1
Joined: March 18th, 2022, 6:52 pm
Location: Louisiana
Grass Type: Zoysia
Lawn Size: Not Specified
Level: Some Experience

New Lawn

Post by Colonel68 » March 19th, 2022, 8:32 am

I completely resodded my front yard after Hurricane Ida and I want to fertilize for the spring. I applied Scott’s Lawn Starter food a couple of days ago and I would like to know when I can apply the next level of fertilizer and what would be best for it at that point? Thanks for the help.

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turf_toes
Posts: 6042
Joined: December 17th, 2008, 8:46 pm
Location: Central NJ
Grass Type: 77% Blueberry/23% Midnight Star KBG in front. Bewitched KBG monostand in back.
Lawn Size: Not Specified
Level: Not Specified

Re: New Lawn

Post by turf_toes » March 19th, 2022, 11:02 am

I generally avoid early Spring fertilizer. It’s not good for the grass plant. (Causes top growth and early depletion of carbohydrate reserves). I know the big companies push Spring fertilizer. But that has more to do with normalizing their revenue streams than it does with the needs of your lawn.

But generally speaking, I’d wait six weeks between fertilizer applications. If you are one to believe the “four-step” programs, I’d suggest following their label instructions.

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Dchall_San_Antonio
Posts: 3341
Joined: December 17th, 2008, 1:53 am
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Grass Type: St Augustine
Lawn Size: 5000-10000
Level: Advanced

Re: New Lawn

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » March 20th, 2022, 4:32 pm

Welcome, Colonel. I agree with turf toes on timing. Your grass should have enough reserve energy to make it until May. If you are in northern LA, you could go until the end of May. But if you were hit by Ida, then you're likely more coastal. If you wouldn't mind, would you please redo that part of your profile to home us in on your location? New Orleans is somewhat different from Ruston, and knowing exactly where you are helps us to help you without more going back and forth to get specifics. I promise we're not all going to show up for Mardi Gras...although, what do you guys think about a party next year??? :rotfl:

If you want the absolute best fertilizer for your situation, it is best to get a soil chemistry test to see what your soil is lacking. It is always lacking nitrogen, but it is not necessarily lacking in potassium or phosphorous. If you have not already investigated the soils section of these forums, please check out the kind of details you can get from a soil test at Logan Labs. The LL basic test ($25) includes pH, organic matter, base saturation, total exchange capacity, Mehlich III extractable sulfur, phosphorous, calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, boron, iron, manganese, copper, zinc, aluminum (*ammonium acetate method available). You can get all these tests from a local university, but the cost will be much higher than $25. Plus if you post your results to the forum, you'll get about $250 worth of free recommendations as to exactly what to apply, how, why, when, how often, and where to buy the products.

Also it would help us to know what kind of a lawn you want to have? For example do you want to have something green which may include a multiculture of some weeds? Or do you want to have a pristine, lawn-of-the-month every month of the growing season? Generally the advice from here would have you apply a preemergent in late winter (it lasts a few months, so no need to hit the exact right date), post emergent herbicide (spot spray) in mid April, full dose of fertilizer in May, full dose of fertilizer at the end of summer, and a winterizer type dose of fertilizer in late fall. Rarely will we recommend a proactive dose of insecticide or fungicide in the summer, because we are mostly organic gardeners and value the contribution of the microbes in the soil. However, if you have bona fide insect or disease problems, we are ready to help you through to the other side of that.

And one more request: what variety of zoysia did you sod? I ask that for personal reasons and to help the community. My experience with zoysia was not good as it often went dormant in the late spring and remained dormant until the following April. Others with different varieties have had much better success. Here is a picture of what I'm talking about. This is not my house, but it was in the neighborhood and the turf is zoysia.

Image

The cause of this patch is runoff from the yard. When we get heavy thunderstorms his yard drains through the beds to the dead zone where it pooled long enough to switch the zoysia to dormant. I do not know which variety he has, and neither does he.

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MorpheusPA
Posts: 18129
Joined: March 5th, 2009, 7:32 pm
Location: Zone 6 (Eastern PA)
Grass Type: Elite KBG
Lawn Size: 10000-20000
Level: Advanced

Re: New Lawn

Post by MorpheusPA » March 29th, 2022, 9:08 pm

Louisiana Zoysia is a little different from other grasses--it's more Southern-Warm Season than our Northern-Cold Season grasses. It's not going to be as unhappy with spring feeding as our grasses would be, so a spring feeding won't be taken amiss (in fact, Pennsylvania Zoysia is pretty much the same except the seasonality varies).

It's happier being treated more like Bermuda than like Bluegrass. Feed lightly to moderately every 4 to 6 weeks through the growing season with a nitrogen-heavy fertilizer unless your soil test says something different. It's that simple. Get the cheapest stuff from the store with a high first number, low second and third numbers.

Unless you get a soil test, in which case Andy or I will read it, tell you what you'll need, and we'll go from there. You'll still feed, but you might use something else in that case. We...have a bit of a backup in soil tests at the moment due to Andy's extended vacation and my current workload, but we're catching up now.

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