BELLERIVE CC PRACTICE OF KEEPING ZOYSIA ALIVE WHILE WAITING TO REUSE IT

ndent Bellerive Country Club We Grow Our Best Zoysia on Pavement It has become a running joke among the Bellerive agronomy team that we grow our best zoysia grass sod in our parking lot. Whenever we have leftover sod pieces from a sodding project out on the golf course, we lay out the excess pieces in the parking lot of our ground maintenance facility until a new location to lay the sod on the course can be identified and prepped. As crazy as it seems, an asphalt parking lot does have its pros as a growing environment. It’s a constant warm environment which zoysia enjoys being a warm season turf species, the turfgrass isn’t subjected to the stresses of being mowed or run over by golf carts, and it has a readily available supply of water being situated next to our equipment wash station. No superintendent enjoys sodding zoysia grass, sodding tall fescue is much easier by comparison. If fescue is kept hydrated it will blend into the existing turf in a matter of weeks to months. Zoysia is a multi-year commitment as it can take up to three years for zoysia sod to completely blend into the existing turf. A superintendent once said that in year one zoysia sod sleeps, year two it creeps, and year three it leaps. Zoysia grass already has a slow growth and recovery rate compared to other turfgrass species such as bermudagrass, but that slow growth rate is even slower in freshly sodded zoysia which takes a few years to get going. Being a warm season turfgrass species that goes dormant in the colder months zoysia’s slow growth rate is hampered even further by only having an active growing season in our climate from April-May through September-October. This is why divots on a tee box take an exceedingly long time to heal over and golf cart traffic on fairways is often restricted over the winter months as it would cause damage to the plant that cannot be seen until it exits dormancy in the spring. Zoysia typically has a mowing height of 0.500-0.600” which requires zoysia sod to match up perfectly with the existing turf, as mowers would scalp if the transition between sod and existing turf wasn’t perfect due to the low height of cut. To help alleviate this problem it is preferred to walk mow zoysia sod for its first season as a walk mower reduces the risk of scalping and is easier on the plant. With all of these factors stacked against it maybe there’s some truth to our running joke about growing our best zoysia on pavement.