Get Your Empire Zoysia Lawn Ready for Fall
By Ilyne Hayes
After getting through the sweltering, rainy summer, most Floridians are looking forward to the cooler and drier fall and winter months that will soon be here. Summer camps are over, and the back-to-school preparations are done. The stores have already changed their displays from “fun in the sun” merchandise to loading their shelves with candy and decorations for Halloween and Thanksgiving. At your home, your lawn is waiting for you to prepare it for the upcoming season, too.
Sod Solutions®, the company that brought zoysia grass from Brazil and developed it into EMPIRE® Zoysia, a breed that is perfect for our Florida climate, wants to help you have the most beautiful and healthiest lawn possible. For more than 28 years, they have made it their mission to develop and improve turfgrass for both commercial and residential lawns. To assist and educate their clients in choosing and maintaining the best type of grass for their area and usage, they developed Sod University®, which is accessible on their website: EMPIREinFlorida.com.
Developed to thrive in Florida’s climate, EMPIRE Zoysia features superior wear tolerance while feeling softer underfoot. EMPIRE is also known for its drought and chinch bug resistance, which are both important features for Florida residents. As a living product, EMPIRE needs some care to successfully get through our dry and colder weather.
Sod Solutions recommends six maintenance tips for your EMPIRE Zoysia lawn this fall:
1. Mow less often and allow the blades to grow higher than usual. This allows for deeper root growth, which helps your lawn survive during the winter season when EMPIRE Zoysia may become dormant. EMPIRE typically thrives at a height of one to two inches throughout the year, so keeping it about a half inch taller helps prepare it for winter.
2. Water sparingly. Sod Solutions recommends about one inch of water per week, including rainfall. If there has been a good amount of rain that week, additional watering could do more harm than good.
3. Fertilize with the right nutrients at the right times as temperatures drop and changes in the soil occur. Sod Solutions makes proper fertilization easy through their Lawnifi® program, which produces seasonal fertilizer boxes. The fall box contains three bottles, Boost®, Maintain®, and Recover®. These specific formulas are meant to be applied at three different times as you get deeper into the fall season. Instructions for use and an application schedule are included in each Lawnifi box.
4. Be proactive with weed control by applying
pre-emergent herbicides that will prevent weeds like Poa annua, henbit, and chickweed from invading your lawn during the fall and winter seasons.
5. Although EMPIRE Zoysia is chinch bug resistant, applying an insecticide, such as imidacloprid, will prevent future invasion of other insects like grub worms and hunting billbugs.
6. Early fall is the time to prevent large patch disease from taking over your lawn. A preventative fungicide, such as Heritage, Scott’s DiseaseEx, or Fame should be applied as we transition from warm temperatures to cooler ones.
With any chemical treatment you plan on using, make sure to follow the label instructions thoroughly.
To help you prepare your EMPIRE Zoysia lawn for the fall, Sod Solutions has a live chat available on their website at EMPIREinFlorida.com. Their experts will also answer lawn care questions for most types of grass via the live chat, by email, or by phone because they take pride in helping their customers achieve beautiful, healthy lawns, no matter the season.
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