Has anyone done Zoysia in the Houston area instead of St. Augustine? We like the look and feel of it over St. Augustine is the primary reason.

We have moderate shade, but probably 5 or so hours of Sun a day. Also a dog and kids so need to be somewhere dense/durable. I just have no experience with it other than several of the big sod places in Houston have it and say it does well here.

I've seen a few varieties that seem like a good fit: Zeon, Cavalier, or Emerald. Palisades I think takes more sun that we have.

If I do end up doing St. Augustine, Palmetto seems like the obvious choice.

I have it and it has done fair. Sections of it died and have bare patches.

St. Augustine did the same thing though.

We too have about 5 hours of Sun. It's mostly shade. Just a tough spot to grow grass.

I've done emerald and palisades zoysia under oak trees and emerald did better despite the thinner blades. Go figure.

Train your dog to pick a spot out of view. It doesn't like piss

Zeon has the best combination of wear & shade tolerance out of the three varieties that you mentioned.

I am contemplating getting 3 pallets of Zeon zoysia in our backyard to fill in the section of our backyard where our trampoline used to be and is now basically dirt. Bermuda traditionally didn't do well on that area before, but hoping Zoysia fares better.

That said, is it too early in the year to buy the pallets now? I'm in Fort Worth and found a place that sells/delivers Zeon zoysia and I can get driver as early as end of this coming week. Just didn't know if it was too early yet for it to be a good idea to put the grass down now.

I'd wait until at least the second or third week of March, personally. The grass may survive a frost but there's no point risking it when we're still a month out from the start of growing season.

I have two pallets of Emerald earmarked for then.

We replaced our backyard St. Augustine with Zeon 5-ish years ago in Houston, and it has done well. It still struggles in a couple of spots that are especially high traffic or more shaded, but overall it's been very strong and resilient, and we love the way it looks and feels. Definitely does not struggle with disease and insect challenges as much as our front yard St. Aug.

So when you say struggles in the shade..... How much sunlight hours would you say the areas that struggle get a day? 4 or less? And does it handle shade about as well as the St. Augustine? My Bermuda hardly grows in some spots and I know shade is an issue in this areas, as they probably get 4 hours of sun a day

Really interested in understanding how much shade as well.