davidg32
06-11-2006, 05:26 PM
I am not a commercial landscaper, and I hope that asking this question here is not considered inappropriate.
My father died about a year and a half ago, and my mother wanted to spend some of the life insurance money on getting our yards fixed up because Dad had always complained about how bad they looked.
We had a local landscaper come by and look at the yards, and he recommended that we install emerald zoysia. He stated that zoysia was very pretty, and would grow in very thick and we wouldn't have any weeds. (To keep you all from thinking I'm a babbling idiot, I did not believe that we'd never have any weeds. But I did think that zoysia's thickness after it has grown for a few years might choke a lot of the weeds out and we wouldn't have many.)
He claimed that he would spray Round-Up to kill all the bermudagrass that was currently growing, scrape it all up with a bobcat, and then install the sod. He did not do exactly that, however...he first scraped up the bermudagrass with the bobcat, then went around spraying here and there wherever he saw a root left. Then he installed the zoysia sod.
We watered it very heavily for several weeks, to "wake up" the sod and start the roots to growing. As it began to settle in and green up, we noticed that some of the grass looked different than some of the other. It turned out that some sod squares were NOT emerald zoysia, and some of these (not all) were replaced. But immediately large sections of bermudagrass began growing up, and just about all of the lawn (especially the front) was saturated with it almost immediately. The landscaper claimed that the sod farm sent him some bad sod and that HE should not be held responsible. He and a representative of the sod farm met here one day, and argued back and forth. The sod farm representative claims that it's the landscaper's fault for not first spraying and killing everything...that bermudagrass is extremely hardy, aggressive, and invasive...and that just because the landscaper had scraped the yard doesn't mean he could then see all the roots. The landscaper claims that he DID spray first (I can prove he didn't), and that the sod farm should pay to replace everything.
At the end of last summer, the landscaper said that the sod farm person claims that there is a chemical which will kill all the bermudagrass, without hurting the emerald zoysia. He wants the "settlement" to be that he will come and spray this chemical, and that's it.
A couple of questions, if you don't mind:
1. Is there actually such a chemical? And if so, will it really work as described, i.e.: kill the bermuda, without hurting the zoysia?
2. I know that none of you have actually seen the yard, but in your professional opinion, do you think the landscaper's failure to first spray with Round-Up (or similar product) could be primarily responsible for the fact that excessiave amounts of bermudagrass just sprang up almost immediately?
Any information, experience you could share will be gratefully appreciated.
And as I stated above, I hope that asking this question here is not considered inappropriate or an abuse of the website. I know that the great majority of landscapers out there are dedicated, hard-working and honest people...and certainly do not feel that the one I ran into is in any way representative of the profession.
Warm regards,
David Gardner
davidg32@yahoo.com
My father died about a year and a half ago, and my mother wanted to spend some of the life insurance money on getting our yards fixed up because Dad had always complained about how bad they looked.
We had a local landscaper come by and look at the yards, and he recommended that we install emerald zoysia. He stated that zoysia was very pretty, and would grow in very thick and we wouldn't have any weeds. (To keep you all from thinking I'm a babbling idiot, I did not believe that we'd never have any weeds. But I did think that zoysia's thickness after it has grown for a few years might choke a lot of the weeds out and we wouldn't have many.)
He claimed that he would spray Round-Up to kill all the bermudagrass that was currently growing, scrape it all up with a bobcat, and then install the sod. He did not do exactly that, however...he first scraped up the bermudagrass with the bobcat, then went around spraying here and there wherever he saw a root left. Then he installed the zoysia sod.
We watered it very heavily for several weeks, to "wake up" the sod and start the roots to growing. As it began to settle in and green up, we noticed that some of the grass looked different than some of the other. It turned out that some sod squares were NOT emerald zoysia, and some of these (not all) were replaced. But immediately large sections of bermudagrass began growing up, and just about all of the lawn (especially the front) was saturated with it almost immediately. The landscaper claimed that the sod farm sent him some bad sod and that HE should not be held responsible. He and a representative of the sod farm met here one day, and argued back and forth. The sod farm representative claims that it's the landscaper's fault for not first spraying and killing everything...that bermudagrass is extremely hardy, aggressive, and invasive...and that just because the landscaper had scraped the yard doesn't mean he could then see all the roots. The landscaper claims that he DID spray first (I can prove he didn't), and that the sod farm should pay to replace everything.
At the end of last summer, the landscaper said that the sod farm person claims that there is a chemical which will kill all the bermudagrass, without hurting the emerald zoysia. He wants the "settlement" to be that he will come and spray this chemical, and that's it.
A couple of questions, if you don't mind:
1. Is there actually such a chemical? And if so, will it really work as described, i.e.: kill the bermuda, without hurting the zoysia?
2. I know that none of you have actually seen the yard, but in your professional opinion, do you think the landscaper's failure to first spray with Round-Up (or similar product) could be primarily responsible for the fact that excessiave amounts of bermudagrass just sprang up almost immediately?
Any information, experience you could share will be gratefully appreciated.
And as I stated above, I hope that asking this question here is not considered inappropriate or an abuse of the website. I know that the great majority of landscapers out there are dedicated, hard-working and honest people...and certainly do not feel that the one I ran into is in any way representative of the profession.
Warm regards,
David Gardner
davidg32@yahoo.com