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Zoysia grass is a common warm-season grass used in a lot of lawns in North America. If you have a zoysia grass lawn and you actively care for it yourself, you may be in the need of some effective pre-emergent products for dealing with weeds and fertilizing your lawn.
Here, we present some of the best pre-emergents for zoysia grass, and we’ll also give you some helpful information about how to use pre-emergents.
Best Pre Emergent for Zoysia Grass
Blindside Herbicides WDG FMC Selective Herbicide
Pros
- Includes a measuring device for getting the correct dosage
- One container can treat up to 50,000 feet of lawn
- Pet-safe if used as directed
Cons
- Not available in many states in the U.S.
Blindside Selective Herbicide is an effective post-emergent herbicide that’s great at dealing with all kinds of weeds.
It’s absorbed through both the roots and the leaves of the weeds it targets, and it’s capable of killing over 70 different types of weeds including dollarweed, buttonweed, and doveweed.
It’s fast-acting too and is able to start visibly decreasing your population of weeds within a week of applying it to your lawn.
It’s also good at pre-emergent prevention because it targets the reproductive systems of post-emergent weeds to prevent any weeds from fertilizing each other.
This helps to reduce the population of weeds that emerges when the next season for weed growth rolls around.
A half-pound container of Blindside will be able to treat over 50,000 square feet of lawn.
The container comes with a handy dosing chamber integrated into it, which allows you to measure out precisely enough herbicide to treat 1,000 square feet.
The best part is that Blindside isn’t just for use on zoysia grass, it can also be used on pretty much any kind of warm-season grass and even some cool-season grasses, like Bermuda grass, centipedegrass, and even St. Augustine grass.
The active ingredients in this herbicide are sulfentrazone (60%) and mesulfuron-methyl (6%).
Best Crabgrass Killer for Zoysia Grass
Hi-Yield Turf & Ornamental Weed & Grass Stopper
Hi-Yield Turf & Ornamental Weed & Grass Stopper is an herbicide that is particularly effective at controlling crabgrass but can also be used against common weeds like spurge, woodsorrel, chickweed, and carpetweed.
It can be used as a pre-emergent if you apply this herbicide before the seeds are able to germinate.
It can also be used as a post-emergent, but only if you use it within four weeks after the weeds have germinated and emerged from the soil.
To apply Hi-Yield at the correct time, use it in the spring before the temperature of your soil reaches 55 degrees. This will help you control crabgrass as effectively as possible.
Hi-Yield comes in either a 12-pound bag or a 35-pound bag. For the correct dosage, you’ll need to use anywhere from 3.5 pounds to 9 pounds per 1,000 square feet of your lawn, depending on how serious your weed problem is.
This means that at most, you’ll be able to treat 10,000 square feet of turf with a 35-pound bag.
The main active ingredient in Hi-Yield is dithiopyr (0.125%). This herbicide is safe to use if you have pets that are in contact with your lawn, as long as you use it according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Pros
- Particularly effective at targeting crabgrass
- Available in almost every state
- Pet-safe if used correctly
Cons:
- Can’t treat as many square feet as Blindside
Best Zoysia Grass Fertilizer
Advanced 16-4-8 Balanced NPK
While this isn’t a herbicide, this is still a great pre-emergent product for use on lawns with zoysia grass.
You need to nourish your lawn as well as protect it from weeds, and this is a great product for the job.
This fertilizer comes in a liquid spray format, and its packaging is designed to let you easily apply it to your lawn.
It has a built-in nozzle and an attachment for a garden hose, so you can hook up your house’s water supply right to the container and start spraying away.
No need for any specialized spray gun or fertilizer applicator!
The formula in this fertilizer contains nutrients your lawn needs for healthy growth, like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
It also contains seaweed and fish, which are additional sources of all of these nutrients.
Plus, not only is it great for zoysia grass, but it can be used as a fertilizer on a ton of other grasses, like Bermuda grass, St. Augustine grass, centipedegrass, palmetto, fescue, ryegrass, and Kentucky bluegrass.
Pros
- Suitable for many grass types
- The container’s integrated applicator makes spraying this product incredibly easy
Cons
- Not actually an herbicide
How to Pick the Best Pre-Emergent for Your Lawn?
You can’t just pick a pre-emergent at random and apply it to your lawn. Depending on various factors, the type of pre-emergent you choose matters a lot.
For one thing, you need to pick a herbicide that’s actually designed to kill the weeds you have. Some pre-emergents kill grass too, so you need to make sure that whatever pre-emergent you’re using is safe for use on zoysia grass.
If you don’t already know this information, then before you pick a pre-emergent you should determine approximately how large your yard is in square feet.
Any pre-emergent will have some kind of indication on the packaging of how many square feet of lawn it will be able to treat, so just look for it and you’ll easily find this information.
Last but not least, the type of substance your herbicide comes in matters too. Herbicides generally come in two types: liquid-based and granule-based.
If you go with a granule-based herbicide, the area you apply the herbicide to will need to be watered either before or after the fact. Some granule-based herbicides allow you to actually mix the granules in with your water supply and spray everything on your lawn at once using an applicator.
In the case of liquid-based herbicides, you always have to pre-mix them with water before you spray them on your lawn.
How to Correctly Use a Pre-Emergent?
When using a pre-emergent, you can’t just spray it on your lawn at any time and expect positive results. The process of applying pre-emergents is a lot more complicated than that and there are several things you need to know before starting.
Firstly, it’s unlikely that the entire population of weeds on your lawn will be wiped out after the first time you apply your pre-emergent.
There are tons of factors that affect how and why weeds are able to grow, and many weed seeds have naturally evolved to be resistant to harsh conditions in any case.
Sometimes you’ll need to apply an herbicide to your lawn more than once for satisfactory results.
You also have to apply pre-emergents at the right time of year and under the right conditions for them to be really effective at eliminating weed. It also depends on how the pre-emergent you’re using works.
The right time and the optimal conditions to use a pre-emergent are going to change a lot as well depending on what weeds you’re trying to get rid of. Do plenty of research on the weeds in your garden and how they grow before looking for a pre-emergent.
In the case of most pre-emergents, they are not effective if used as spot treatments. Weeds can spread out underground to parts of your lawn not covered by herbicide, so you’ll need to treat your entire lawn for pre-emergents to work properly.
Are There Natural Alternatives to Chemical-Based Pre-Emergents?
It’s fair if you’re skeptical about using a chemical-based pre-emergent herbicide on your lawn. Although most of them are pretty safe to use, sometimes you would just prefer to not use any kind of chemical or synthetic substance to kill weeds.
If this is the case, one alternative to chemical herbicides that you can use on weedy areas of your lawn is corn gluten meal. This is a natural pre-emergent, and it works because it has a very high nitrogen content which helps inhibit the germination of selected weed seeds.
Just like other pre-emergents, however, you’ll still have to apply it at the correct time in order to see any results. Corn gluten meal might also not be effective at eliminating some types of weeds, so always do preliminary research to see if it’ll work.
Although it’s not always effective as a pre-emergent, corn gluten meal is also a great fertilizer because it’s so rich in nitrogen. In fact, you can use it continually on your lawn if the turf is well-established.
Some organic lawn and garden care products contain corn meal gluten, so look for this ingredient in their formula if you want to find an effective, naturally derived pre-emergent and fertilizer.
Help Your Zoysia Grass Grow Strong!
If you’ve got a zoysia grass lawn, these are some of the best pre-emergents for zoysia grass available that can help your lawn stay healthy and stave off pesky weeds.
With these products and the other info in this article, you should be well on your way to having a beautiful, healthy, weed-free lawn just as you’d like.