Zoysia vs. St. Augustine in Brevard: Where Bahia Fits

Pick zoysia for wear and a finer blade, St. Augustine when wear is light, and Bahia only away from salt water. UF/IFAS rates zoysia and St. Augustine alike for salt (good) and shade (good to excellent, depending on the cultivar). Zoysia takes more traffic. Bahia has very poor salt tolerance (UF/IFAS, Selecting a Turfgrass for Florida Lawns).

Where none of the three will grow, plant a bed or groundcover instead, which is what our landscape design and installation work covers. The last section of this post gets there.

Zoysia vs. St. Augustine vs. Bahia, side by side

UF/IFAS publishes one comparison table for Florida lawns. These are its ratings for the three grasses in this post (UF/IFAS, Selecting a Turfgrass for Florida Lawns):

Two things to read from it. Zoysia and St. Augustine tie on salt and shade, so those do not separate them. Wear and texture do. And the shade ratings depend on the cultivar, so ask for the cultivar name before you commit. Each name covers several grasses: UF/IFAS describes St. Augustine cultivars such as Bitterblue, Floratam and Seville (UF/IFAS, St. Augustinegrass for Florida Lawns), and zoysia species including Zoysia japonica, Z. matrella and Z. pacifica (UF/IFAS, Zoysiagrass for Florida Lawns).

St. Augustine: Floratam and the shade question

UF/IFAS says St. Augustine establishes quickly and easily and may be planted as sod, sprigs or plugs, and it says Floratam is the most widely produced and used St. Augustine in Florida, and that the species has relatively good salt tolerance (UF/IFAS, St. Augustinegrass for Florida Lawns).

It has two known weak spots. The first is shade. The same publication calls Floratam poor in shade relative to other St. Augustine cultivars and says it does not persist well where it gets less than 6 hours of sunlight a day. Other cultivars do better: Bitterblue has good shade tolerance, and Seville performs well in both shade and full sun (UF/IFAS, St. Augustinegrass for Florida Lawns).

The second weak spot is insects. UF/IFAS calls the southern chinch bug the major insect pest of St. Augustine and says chinch bugs are now a major pest of Floratam (UF/IFAS, St. Augustinegrass for Florida Lawns). Treating them is a job for a pest control company, not for us.

Once you have St. Augustine, how often to water it in a Brevard summer covers the watering days and the mowing height.

Zoysia: the finer, tougher lawn

Zoysia is adapted to a variety of soil types and has good tolerance to shade, salt and traffic (UF/IFAS, Zoysiagrass for Florida Lawns). In the table above it is also the only one of the three with good to excellent wear tolerance. If kids, dogs or a path across the yard beat up your grass, that matters. UF/IFAS says Empire is the most common zoysiagrass in Florida (UF/IFAS, Zoysiagrass for Florida Lawns).

The tradeoffs are in the work. Zoysia leaves contain more lignin and silica than other turfgrasses, so they can be quite difficult to mow, and a sharp, well-adjusted rotary or reel mower should be used. UF/IFAS gives 1.75 to 2.5 inches as the height for a rotary mower. Thatch builds up and must be controlled or removed mechanically to keep a uniform look. In drought, zoysia turns brown and goes dormant in a short period of time (UF/IFAS, Zoysiagrass for Florida Lawns).

It also starts differently. With one exception, zoysiagrasses must be planted vegetatively, by sod, plugs or sprigs. Only Zoysia japonica is sold as seed (UF/IFAS, Zoysiagrass for Florida Lawns). Ask whoever lays it which species and cultivar you are getting.

Bahia: the low-input option

UF/IFAS describes bahiagrass as a low-maintenance lawn grass that persists better than other grasses in infertile, sandy soils (UF/IFAS, Bahiagrass for Florida Lawns). Its extensive root system gives it better drought tolerance than other Florida lawn grasses (UF/IFAS, Bahiagrass).

The cost is looks and wear. Varieties currently available do not produce a carpet-like, dense lawn, and some people find the tall seedheads unattractive. Left unmowed, bahia can reseed itself from them. During active growth it should be mowed every 7 to 14 days to a height of 3 to 4 inches (UF/IFAS, Bahiagrass), and it needs a sharp, heavy-duty rotary blade (UF/IFAS, Bahiagrass for Florida Lawns).

The deal-breaker near salt water is in the table above: bahia's salt tolerance is rated very poor. UF/IFAS also notes that seeding is less expensive and requires less labor than sodding (UF/IFAS, Bahiagrass for Florida Lawns). If you have a large, low-traffic lot away from the coast, Bahia is worth pricing.

Which grass for your Brevard lot

Four questions decide it: how much sun, how close to salt water, how much wear, and how sandy the soil is.

• Distance to the coast. Coastal yards face wind, salt and sandy, high-pH soil, and UF/IFAS puts the strongest salt advice within an eighth of a mile of the coast (UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions, Coastal Landscapes). That page is about plants in general, not turf. Measure your lot on a map. If you are within that distance of the water, rule out Bahia and choose between St. Augustine and zoysia, both rated good for salt.
• Sun. Count the hours of direct summer sun on each part of the yard. Floratam does not persist well in under 6 hours (UF/IFAS, St. Augustinegrass for Florida Lawns). For shadier ground, UF/IFAS rates both St. Augustine and zoysia good to excellent for shade, depending on the cultivar (UF/IFAS, Selecting a Turfgrass for Florida Lawns).
• Wear. UF/IFAS rates zoysia good to excellent for wear and Bahia poor, so a high-traffic yard points to zoysia (UF/IFAS, Selecting a Turfgrass for Florida Lawns).
• Sandy soil. UF/IFAS says Bahia persists better than other grasses in infertile, sandy soils (UF/IFAS, Bahiagrass for Florida Lawns). If you have a large sandy lot where watering is a chore, price it out.

Sketch the yard and mark the shaded strips and worn paths. Those are the spots where a second material may beat any turf.

When no turf works: shade, foot traffic and bare spots

Start with shade. If a mature oak or a wall leaves a strip with under 6 hours of sun, Floratam is the wrong grass there (UF/IFAS, St. Augustinegrass for Florida Lawns).

At that point, stop reseeding and replant. UF/IFAS lists groundcovers for places turf will not grow. Asiatic jasmine "tolerates many growing conditions, even areas where turfgrass won't thrive," and blue-eyed grass grows in partial shade and full sun (UF/IFAS, Alternatives to Turfgrass). Match the groundcover to the traffic. The same page says Asiatic jasmine cannot tolerate foot traffic, so use walkways, and perennial peanut does not tolerate foot traffic well either, so install pathways. That is where pavers come in: a stepping path across a planted bed keeps people off the plants.

This is the part of the yard we build. Our landscape design and installation service covers soil prep, new beds, shrubs, groundcover, palms and trees, Florida-Friendly plants, and mulch and rock to finish. If you have a shaded or worn-out strip that keeps failing, ask for an estimate and we will walk the yard with you.

See what our Landscape Design & Renovation service includes in Brevard County.