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Old 06-03-2007, 03:58 PM posted to austin.gardening
Scott Harper Scott Harper is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Mar 2007
Posts: 9
Default Shade + Large Dog = New Grass Needed Redux. Zoysia?

In article , Omelet wrote:
In article . net,
(Scott Harper) wrote:

In article , Jangchub
wrote:
No turfgrass will thrive in shade other than St. Augustine. I have
known people to plant dwarf monkey grass in shade to replace turf, and
it can be mowed, but not sure about the trampling of your beauty dog.


I have zoysia planted in heavy shade under some large oak trees and it
thrives
just fine. It even spreads pretty well. It is the larger bladed version of
zoysia... I think El Toro and Palisades are two of the varieties.


scott


I'll save this, thanks!
I really do need to solve my grass problem and I'll forever regret
planting Bermuda. Ugly damned grass. :-(

It's died out in most areas fortunately.

It was expensive as hell too.


I started as an experiment with plugs under one group of trees. It does take
a while to fill in from plugs, at least a year. But once it filled in, it
started spreading outward and that seems to be moving much faster. I repeated
the experiment under two other groups of trees, and it seems to be about the
same result.

If I ever get serious about a large area, I would probably go with sod --
especially if it is in a shaded area. But I've done a little poking around on
the web and I think you can get it done with hydromulch. That might be a
cheaper alternative in bigger, sunnier areas.

As far as plugs go... you can order them online pretty expensive. I just
called the grass company (Grass Patch?) that used to be on McNeil, then 183,
and now out on the Parmer extension. They had some scrap, and basically gave
me 8 or 10 squares of sod (actually, it was a dollar or two per square), which
I cut into my own plugs with a shovel.


scott