Zoysia grasses, in particular, are usually more prone to insects like billbugs. All three of these grasses are available from regional sod farms and the visual differences of these choices are great. This is why zoysia grasses can be found in golf courses instead of St. Augustines—zoysias are generally more durable. EMPIRE is a beautiful grass but in the really shaded areas, it is thinner than the areas that get much sunlight. Be sure to read each label thoroughly before application. It should be known that St. Augustines are the most shade tolerant warm season turfgrass varieties available. Both zoysia and St. Augustine grasses are pretty shade tolerant compared to other turfgrass varieties. There are many types of St. Augustine and zoysia grass available to the homeowner, so a lot of these characteristics may vary depending on the cultivar of St. Augustine and zoysia selected for sod installation. The fine-bladed Zoysia grasses are about as shade tolerant as the most shade tolerant St. Augustine grass we sell, which is Palmetto. Learning about the different types of turfgrass varieties available is a great idea before making a commitment to a type of grass. As previously stated, this blog discusses zoysia and St. Augustine comparisons from a generic perspective. Zorro is the #1 rated zoysia grass in the NTEP trials. They will then return to color shortly after resuming a regular watering schedule. It’s surprising that St Augustine is as popular as it is because it is actually not very drought hearty and it consumes quite a … Take a look at some of our top recommended products for these lawn diseases. All zoysias spread via rhizomes and stolons. There’s so much vegetation and it’s so dense. Here’s the short and sweet of my research: Palisade Zoysia is the most shade tolerant of the zoysia and is currently only available in sod. It should be known that St. Augustines are the most shade tolerant warm season turfgrass varieties available. St. Augustinegrass does not tolerate high traffic. I think, when established, it looks like a neater, thicker, straighter St. Aug. My opinion. St. Augustine (Raleigh): Pros: Very shade tolerant, but still requires 3-4 hours of intermittent sunlight Dark Green and Drought Tolerant Salt Tolerance is the high Recuperates quickly from stresses and damage “Stays above the problem” with thick, heavy surface stolens Moderate fertilization – mow every 7 days A good “plugging” grass. Pictured above from left to right: Innovation Zoysia and CitraBlue St. Augustine. St. Augustines frequently experience brown patch and grey leaf spot. I guess it also has, if you were comparing it to the St. Augustine, the Zoysias have some pretty decent shade tolerance. It’s also important to note that there are a few big key differences between warm season and cool season varieties. The grass developed from this research proves effective, but needs a bit more fertilizing than Zoysia grass. St. Augustines, in comparison, will hold color better than zoysias and have a higher drought resistance, but when they start to turn brown from a lack of water, they’re dying—not preserving themselves with dormancy. With more than two billion sq. Take a look at some of our most popular insecticides below. Zoysia will perform well in all three of these soils whereas St. Augustine performs best in loamy and sandy soils. Find the right grass for your location and needs with our Sod Selector tool. A lot of homeowners aren’t sure where to even start with this process. For more information, read our Lawn Disease Control blog and our Identifying Common Lawn Diseases blog. Invest in your lawn with Lawnifi Liquid Fertilizer. St. Augustine grass is the best choice for lawn grass in shade, but if too much shade is a problem, St. Augustine will struggle, thin and eventually fade away. You can learn more about some of the most popular of these in Popular Zoysia Varieties and Popular St. Augustine Grass Varieties. At Sod Solutions, one of our top grasses for shaded areas is Palmetto® St. Augustine. Like Bermuda, it holds up well to foot traffic from people and pets. ft. sold, Palmetto is the most purchased patented turfgrass in the world. Plug trays are the perfect and affordable way to fill in spots or test the performance of a grass in your lawn. Call 281-431-7441 for answers to your questions and a quick quote for your project. The landscape guy recommended Zoysia in the well shaded sections of the yard and said it is better shade tolerant than St. Augustine. Most of the grass in the shaded sections of the yard is dead, and so I was thinking of putting new sod in. The same can be said with St. Augustine. It is established from sod. SA will require more fertilizer and water, but less frequent mowing and a rotary mower can be used on any variety. This makes Palisades ideal for shady lawns in the northern portions of the growing range for zoysia. Both zoysia and St. Augustine grasses are pretty shade tolerant compared to other turfgrass varieties. And it’s got some shade … CitraBlue and Palmetto® St. Augustine are the best grasses for shade. Shade Tolerance. There are many different turfgrass varieties to choose from when it comes to installing sod in a new home lawn. It grows vertically and is more dense. On the other hand, CitraBlueTM St. Augustine is known for its deep blue-green color whereas Floratam has a medium green color with red stolons. Drought Tolerant. Fescue vs. Zoysia Fescue or Zoysia Comparison Zoysia vs Fescue. St. Augustines are considered “good” with wear tolerance and injury recovery, although the superior variety, CitraBlue, has a better wear tolerance than most other St. Augustine varieties. Asked February 24, 2013, 10:22 AM EST. A rhizome runs underground horizontally—often just underneath the surface of the soil. Bermuda grass is second in popularity, and Zoysia (a fairly recent addition to Texas grasses) is gaining ground. Pictured above: A St. Augustine stolon growing across the surface of the soil above ground. It’s blades are medium sized not the fine variety that some Zoysia’s are. Overall, zoysias are typically fine turfgrasses with a smooth feel. Turf expert Clint Waltz says “Emerald zoysiagrass doesn’t grow really strong in limited light conditions (i.e. It requires re-seeding 1-2 times per year. Most St. Augustines have a blade width of 8–9 mm, but superior St. Augustine varieties like CitraBlue have a blade width of 5–7 mm. Find the right grass for your location and needs. Knowing which types of diseases these two grasses are more susceptible to will really help in preventing and treating any future outbreaks that may occur. Each cultivar of zoysia and St. Augustine performs differently as they were bred at different times with varying goals in mind. In comparison to drought tolerance, drought resistance is the ability to look good during drought. I ordered a pallet of palisades zoysia for the back yard and 1.5 pallets of St Augustine for the front, and it all looks great and is establishing really nicely.The staff is very friendly and knowledgeable, and the videos and tips on the website are extremely helpful. Highlander II Fescue Grass with Ryegrass Seed – 50 lbs. Finer-bladed zoysias, such as Innovation and Geo Zoysia, are more shade tolerant that the thicker-bladed zoysias like EMPIRE. St. Augustine grass is generally regarded as one of the most shade-tolerant species of grass available to home owners, and grows healthily in shady areas that would be unsuitable for many other species of grass. You need to dethatch it every … There are less choices for weed control than with Zoysia, but St. Augustine is more tolerant of our clay based acidic soils. Get the perfect liquid fertilizer for your grass type. Downside is they do not have good wear resistance but recover much faster from damage. Zoysias and St. Augustines can be plagued by different insects, bugs and grubs including mole crickets, billbugs, armyworms, white grub worms, sod webworms, ants, grass spiders or spittlebugs. Mowing heights matter because they usually dictate how frequently homeowners will need to mow. I think this is your problem. If shade is a problem, prune lower branches on shade trees to allow more light to enter in the morning or afternoon. A: It is true that zoysia is more shade tolerant than bermudagrass – – but it needs at least four hours of direct sunshine or eight hours of very bright reflected light to thrive. So of your two choices: This is done by removing lower branches not thinning out the canopy. When building a new lawn, be sure you choose the grass breed that fits your shade coverage, lawn care schedule, and … Drought tolerance is the ability to survive a drought. Be sure to read each label thoroughly before application. The best you can do is mow the zoysia in the shade a little higher and feed it a little less to help it tolerate the shade it’s in. Let me try to specify the light levels needed, in declining order, for the different turfgrasses. Just amount of vegetation per square inch is so high versus the St. Augustine, it’s going to wear down a lot slower. Specific zoysia and St. Augustine varieties may differ, but they generally fall pretty close to their generic mowing heights. It needs 100% sun all the time or it will thin out and be ugly. Spectracide Immunox Fungus + Insect Control. Zoysia requires more time so if you have a big yard, I would say forget it. In the Zoysia family, Emerald is the fine blade and Myers is the medium size blade. The wider-bladed zoysias are considered “very good” with wear tolerance and injury recovery. It is a very fine bladed zoysia with a deep, green color that is suitable for golf courses, commercial and residential lawns. It does not perform as well in shaded areas. Palisades Zoysia is only about as shade tolerant as Raleigh St. Augustine grass. Wider-bladed zoysias, like EMPIRE, usually have a blade width of 5–7 mm, whereas finer-bladed zoysias, like InnovationTM Zoysia and GeoTM Zoysia, have a blade width around 2 mm. St. Augustines only spread through the above-the-ground runners, stolons. JaMur needs less water and less fertilizer than other standard lawn grasses. Houston Grass, All Rights Reserved. There are three main types of soil: sandy, clay and loamy soil. St. Aug in Front Yard and Zoysia in Back. Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time. Zoysia is highly recommended for home lawns because of its low maintenance. Once established, this dense turf tends to choke out weeds. Zoysias, in comparison, only have a moderate salt tolerance. Since zoysias grow with both methods, they usually rank higher in wear tolerance, injury recovery and drought tolerance. When it comes to zoysia varieties, zoysia is still pretty shade tolerant for a warm season grass, but their shade tolerance ranks second to that of St. Augustine’s. I'm curious as to how well Zoysia grass (in sod form) will hold up in an area that is well shaded vs. St. Augustine sod. Although both grasses can encounter many different fungus outbreaks, the ones zoysias most frequently experience are brown spot, rust and leaf spot. In addition, JaMur is considered a much-improved replacement for other Zoysia cultivars, including El Toro, Meyer, Palisades, Empire, & Crown. Not thin-bladed like Bermuda . I have EMPIRE zoysia out under a shade tree that gets probably 3 hours of direct sunlight per day. The most … There are other zoysiagrass cultivar better adapted to shade and I … Zorro is rapidly replacing many St. Augustine and centipede lawns due to its great shade tolerance, durability, disease resistance and beauty. Take a look at the list and images below to get a visual representation of what these grasses look like. St. Augustine is the most popular, Sandri says, because it tolerates shade well. Be sure to take a look at a few related Sod University blogs on Collecting and Submitting a Soil Analysis and Why Use Lawnifi Fertilizer?. Pictured above from left to right: EMPIRE, Innovation, Geo Zoysia and Zeon. Learn about Bermuda grass, zoysia grass, st augustine grass, and centipede grass. Moving onto the Saint Augustine varieties. Zoysia lawns are greyish-green in color with a fine texture while St. Augustine grass has a blue-green tint with a fairly coarse texture to its lawns. Finer-bladed zoysias, … This is a small back yard, facing east, with a large fence and two large shade trees blocking early and mid morning sun. There are also outliers like Palmetto, a semi-dwarf St. Augustine, which should be mowed at a height of 1.5–2.5 inches. They are usually a blend of several hybrids that offer different qualities. There are some superior varieties, like Innovation Zoysia, that are immune to the bluegrass billbug, however. Best Suited for Full-Sun or Shady Areas. This is more than just water and sunlight. The Palisade Zoysia seems to do real well with homeowners. Pictured above from left to right: Palmetto, CitraBlue, Floratam and Raleigh St. Augustine. I have St. Augustine grass in my backyard. Similarly to insects, both zoysia and St. Augustines, along with every other grass type, are prone to more diseases or fungus outbreaks than others. This is one of the most difficult features to compare because different varieties of zoysia have different colors. Aaron Kirk Google Review. Lastly, be sure to check out the LawnifiTM liquid fertilizer program—the perfect fertilizer program for both zoysia and St. Augustine. It can be grown in Central and West Texas with more supplemental irrigation. St. Augustine-grass is less drought tolerant than bermudagrass or zoysiagrass. Of the types of grasses for Texas, St Augustine is a long time favorite. A slow-growing grass for full sun to partial shade, Zoysia grass is exotic looking with dark green, thick, and succulent foliage. The St. Augustine are the best grasses for shaded areas is Palmetto® St. Augustine Zoysia a! Resuming a regular watering schedule Homeowner maintenance Guide and Buffalo to behold the lawn to. 2013, 10:22 AM EST your location and needs with our Sod Selector tool in a new lawn... S also important to note that there are three main types of soil: sandy, clay and soil! Loamy soil the top and becomes more compacted towards the soil above.! 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