Q: I need some advice. I have a bermudagrass lawn, but I prefer zoysiagrass. I was planning on plugging in ‘Meyer’ zoysiagrass. Will the zoysiagrass overtake the bermudagrass easily? Is there a better time of year to plug?

A: One of my hobbies is observing turfgrass behavior and noting to myself, “I bet someone will ask me about that someday.”

Such is the case with my neighbor’s sunny lawn, which is a mixture of bermudagrass and zoysiagrass. In the fourteen years I have lived nearby, the original clump of zoysiagrass has grown from barely a foot across to fifteen feet in diameter. From this I deduce that zoysiagrass may be slow, but it is sure. It grows so thickly that over time it gradually out-competes bermudagrass.

If you plant three-inch diameter plugs of ‘Meyer’ zoysiagrass twelve inches apart in your bermudagrass next May, I predict you’ll have a nice zoysiagrass lawn in five years.