grass plugs for lawns

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m having a bad lawn year. Last year, I dumped a lot of money into a service (national chain, local owner) and was not too impressed by the results.

So, this year, I decided to go it alone. A few things I have learned.

  1. granular fertilizer doesn’t seem to be as good as the liquid variety.
  2. after starting out with the lawn that was the envy of the neighborhood, I now have a “lawn” in the loosest definition of the word. Crabgrass seems to be the most popular green stuff in my yard, followed by clover.
  3. No matter what I do, if the guy across the street, my next door neighbor, or someone else in the vicinity that doesn’t take care of his/her yard, odds are that spores of all types of bad stuff will eventually find its way into/onto my yard.
  4. I do not have a green thumb.

I went a-googling last night after a frenzied hour of crabgrass removal (rip and toss in bag). I stumbled onto This stuff - grass plugs!

Has anyone out here have any experience with this type of product? For the record, there are a number of different vendors (no surprise) and my google search was grass + plug.

If anyone can tell me anything about this product or one of its relatives, I’d love to hear your opinions and experiences. This could be the answer to my prayers (besides astroturf, of course).

Thanks.

2

The house I grew up in had Zoyza grass, but we put it in as sod.
It was always nice, thick and green, but it was always the first to turn brown in the fall, while other peoples grass was still green.
So it is a seasonal grass, so I wouldn’t recommend it as a lawn for somewhere where one would have a green lawn all year.
I grew up in Nebraska, by the way.

3

I haven’t used the advertised plugs. I have put pugs from existing lawn into dead areas. Plugs take more than a year to fill in a lawn. The upside is their good for slopes, and existing lawns.

The key is to feritilize, water and reseed completely bare areas of lawn. You need to use the corect grass for the conditions, and a blend can keep something green growing all growing seasons. Over a few years the healthy grass will fill in the lawn solid, and somthing like crab grass and sandburrs can’t sprout in the spring. Next spring use crab grass preventative, so the regular grass doesn’t have the severe competition and can make headway filling in the lawn. Liquid fertilizer is imediately all available for the lawn. Granular will feed the lawn all year. Once you stopthe crab grass from taking over you can put down a broadleaf killer to take out the magority of remaining weeds. In a few years the lawn should be solid grass, and the weeds a very minimal problem. You can than worry about thatch, disease and rodents.

4

Liquid fertilizer makes your grass very green very quickly, but it moves through the soil quickly as well, meaning it doesn’t last very long and you need to reapply more often than with the granular stuff. I feel that the “feast, then famine” approach of using liquid fertilizers harms the grass in the long term.

Weeds. Bane of lawns everywhere. And sometimes, there’s not much you can do but dedicate a full day to get out there on your hands and knees with a sharp screwdriver and pull the suckers by hand. The good news is that once you’ve removed most of them, the rest are easy to get with a tank sprayer and a sharp eye. I have this amazing “Bermuda Grass Weeder” stuff from FertiLome that kills just about all weed varieties, while taking bermuda grass just to the brink of death, from which the grass quickly bounces back.

So what kind of grass do you have now? Zoysia isn’t the only grass you can establish with plugs; maybe you can get plugs that’ll blend better with your existing lawn.

5

Where do you live?

Zoysia grass is a warm season grass which means it is dormant in cold weather. I was surprised to see that your link went to “Colorado Zoysia”, although the area code is 719, which is southern Colorado, which might work.

If you tried to grow that grass in Denver, it would be brown from September until May, and the actual growing season would be so short that it would take years to fill in and become a “lawn”.

Forget it if you live in the Upper Midwest, the Northeast, or the Mountain West. It is good south of Virginia or in the South Central US. I don’t know how it does in the desert.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/Plantanswers/turf/publications/zoysia.html

6

Thing about zoysia is, your neighbors may hate you. Zoysia is a tough grass, the kind inclined to bitch-slap the other grasses and stand on streetcorners looking for trouble. Seriously, some neighbors may respond badly to zoysia moving into their yard…which it will. The problem is that zoysia looks terrible in the winter time and they may not appreciate the aesthetics. OTOH, there’s a lot to be said for zoysia: it’s tough, can bitch-slap weeds better than other grasses, and grows relatively slowly, so there’s less mowing. Of course, it’s not the best feeling grass on bare feet, if that matters to you.

7

Thanks for the feedback, folks!

I live in a zone 5-6 border area (from the arborday.org site). If I had to choose, it would be zone 6. I assume this is as relevant to grasses as it is to trees.

Is there any other grass plugs besides zoysia that I could use?

The neighbors are a concern. I don’t want to be invasive, but at the same time, when do they care if a dandelion blows its seeds into my yard? Or for that matter, how can they be expected to control it? And my current crabgrass problem came from another neighbor. My lawn was crabgrass free last year and (as far as I know) the first two months of this spring.

I know that unless all of my neighbors are as anal about their lawns as I am, the reality is that I will always have problems. It only takes one crappy lawn to spread its crabgrass, weeds, etc. throughout the neighborhood.

So, when I read about zoysia, it seemed like a potential solution. It’s grass (not a weed), it kills weeds and blends itself together, so if the plugs are working and happy, they should make my yard grassy green, reduce mowing, and kill my weed problem. I’m not sure why a neighbor would be pissed, as long as it looked like grass and not a weed. I have a crabgrass marching over my border from my next door neighbor like the Germans invading Poland. There is no stopping it. Other than pulling (which I’ve done) and I just bought some ortho crabgrass spray killer stuff to try to stem the tide. But that’s only a part of the problem. The crabgrass has infiltrated my backyard and has made a significant home. So, all of my hardwork in the spring, the fertilizing, the Scotts 4 step method, the overseeding, blah, blah blah, all down the drain. Money aside, its the time and effort that really stinks. All for not. :mad: The yard now looks like I haven’t touched it. Which would be a lot easier for me to take, considering the money I dumped into yard products. It’s downright embarrassing. I know I shouldn’t take it personally, but I do.

If I use actual sod, it is prone to the same problems I am currently suffering from, correct? So, zoysia may be worth a small purchase and experiment in my back yard. And I’m assuming there are other varieties of this stuff that would perhaps be better for my location?

8

Last year, the drought killed large chunks of my lawn (primarily KY Bluegrass, I believe).

My neighbor introduced me to a type of rolled grass seed/mulch/fertilizer matrix at Home Depot. It comes rolled in gauzy sheets, and you lay it on the bare spots. Then, you simply apply water daily, and the matrix works it’s magic.

It’s really rhe best stuff I’ve ever seen…I hope someone made a ton of money off of that invention.

Not sure if they offer different grass species…I would guess so, by area.

Can’t find a link, though!

-Cem

9

Poor lawns are from poor cultivation habits. Poor habits and the consequences:

  1. Watering insufficient

Water must reach deep down. Not sit at the top from shallow watering. Shallow watering causes thatch. Thatch harbors disease and makes it even harder for water to penetrate. Disease eats grass, crabgrass fills in dead spot.

Water HEAVY.

  1. Grass cut short/clippings bagged

Wow, just send an invitation to weeds and thatch. Solution: Cut the lawn as high as the mower will let you or just one notch below. Don’t collect clippings, use a mulching blade. Mulched grass prevents weeds. You mulch your flower beds and then deny your lawn the same dignity!

  1. Your grass is ‘hooked’ on water soluable nitrogen fertilizers. STOP using liquids, get off off the 4-step granular programs. Find organic fertilizers (Milorganite, Cockadoodledoo, Ringers) and use crabgrass preventer (pre-emergent as a stand-alone application in early spring. You want dead spots and fungus/disease, then keep on with the 4-steppers and such.

  2. Don’t use disease/fungus controls. They will cause long term bad for a short term gain. You want micro organisms and worms flourishing in your lawn.