Zeon Zoysia Looking Dead

Q: Most of my Zeon Zoysia backyard is still dead looking, My lawn service applied pre emergent and fertilizer earlier this year. In the last 4-5 weeks, it is starting to slowly turn green. However, the green grass isn’t getting taller. If high nitrogen fertilizer was applied in Jan, Feb, and Mar. could that have kept my yard from greening up? 

A: Sometimes figuring out what’s wrong with a lawn involves observing the pattern of damage you see. You sent several photos of a brown lawn. In your case, the pattern does not look like a leaf disease that would be common in spring. Instead, it looks like environmental damage that happened last year or earlier this spring. Environmental damage might include fertilizing too late last year too early this year or mowing too low. Those three things would have made the grass tender so that it would be killed by winter cold. Applying a high nitrogen fertilizer in early spring can severely harm dormant grass when the grass wakes up on a warm day and tries to grow in response to the fertilizer. But freezing temperatures quickly kill the revived grass crowns. You should closely examine your lawn to see if there are any green sprouts that could be nurtured to bring the lawn back to health. But if you have a dead lawn, you have a dead lawn, and you’ll have to put in new sod for it to be green again.