Zoysia is the denser sod we lay when a sunny home lawn should feel tighter underfoot. The product page is Zoysia sod. Once the roots are down it grows more slowly than Floratam or Bahia and it handles drought better than Floratam. It wants a shorter, tighter cut than St. Augustine. The site does not name a cultivar. The grass is Zoysia until the crew names something more specific.
It is the wrong buy for a big open field. Bahia covers that ground for less. Paying Zoysia prices for pasture is the budget failure. It is also the wrong grass in deep shade. Partial shade is a Floratam question. All-day shade should be a bed.
What it looks like here
Established Zoysia looks tight and it does not jump into a hay field every week the way St. Augustine does in the rain. That slower growth is the point, and it is also why a new Zoysia lawn disappoints people who expected the drought tolerance on day three. Until the roots are in the grade, it is as dependent on water as any other new sod on this sand.
A scalped Zoysia lawn opens up the same way a scalped St. Augustine lawn does, just from a lower starting height. Green fronds of turf cut to the soil in week two are not an established lawn. They are a lawn we will be talking about again. The tighter cut comes after the grass is holding. Send a close photo of the blade if you are unsure which grass you have. We will not price Zoysia and then mow it like a field of Bahia because the yard looked open from the street. The slower growth is the feature you are paying for.
What we do with it
Prep does not change because the name on the pallet changed. Old material comes out. Water is graded away from the house. Topsoil goes in only where the sand is too thin. Seams are staggered. We do not re-plumb irrigation and we do not install French drains. The installed range is $0.85–$1.75 per square foot, with Zoysia at the higher end beside Floratam. Not a pallet price. Not a bid.
We do not spray it. If a sunny patch dies and the rest is sound, we replace what is dead after the cause is honest: water, shade, or turf that is actually gone. Slow growth after establishment is the grass behaving. Price that lawn through Zoysia sod.