Best way to introduce zoysia grass? (2024)

Currently, my yard is mostly Bermuda grass, with various species of weeds, clover, etc. mixed in. The yard is too big for spraying of pesticides, and I don’t want to do that either. The soil is silt loam, and it drains well. Mostly open to the sun all day. My neighbor on one side has an area covered with zoysia grass, and it’s spreading into my yard slowly but surely. I really like the stuff - it’s dense and soft to walk and sit on, and best yet, it crowds out most / all of the weeds in my yard where it’s established itself. I’d love for it to grow on both sides of my driveway, as that’s where the worst of the worst of the weeds grows - sand burrs (a pox on that species now and for all time!) Again,

except in a few spot applications, and the sand burrs cover far too much of an area for that. I figure if the zoysia was present in the same area, the sand burrs would be crowded out - however, it’ll take years before the present coverage spreads across the yard to the driveway, and there’s still the other side of the driveway to deal with.

What’s the best way to get zoysia established in a current lawn? Spread the seed into the grass / weeds and water? Use a box blade to remove the current vegetation and spread the zoysia seed in the bare dirt? Plugs of zoysia grass planted at intervals in cleared divots? Of course, this would all happen in the mid fall or in the spring when it’s cooler and there would be more precipitation. Just wanted to get your comments on how to go about with this quest. Thanks!

Thanks for the advice thus far, folks. I’d rather not ask my neighbor if I could make divots all over his yard, as I don’t know him well at all. We’re talking dozens, if not hundreds, of plugs to cover the length of the 120-yard driveway on both sides.

I do need to correct a misconception here; the word “pesticide” is an umbrella term for a product that controls a pest - whether that pest be a plant, an insect, a fish, a rodent, etc. Herbicides are for plants, insecticides are for insects, piscicides for fish, rodenticides for rodents, etc. I should know, it’s part of the lexicon where I work

CHenry said:

Whats the advantage of zoysia?

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Thick, lush, soft
Slow growing, drought tolerant, grows sun and shade, chokes out everything else.

turkeyrun said:

Thick, lush, soft
Slow growing, drought tolerant, grows sun and shade, chokes out everything else.

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I would say it flourishes in the sun and will tolerate the shade.