Zoysia is among the worst of turf grasses for high traffic areas. Why? Because it is easily damaged and spreads at the speed of a glacier moving downhill. For high traffic you want something that grows and fills fast. Bermuda is what you really want in the back.

Interesting, everything I’ve seen contradicts that. I’ll look into Bermuda for the back then

I’m located in South Carolina near the border of North Carolina if that makes any difference

You are wanting to produce the back lawn from SEED? Keep in mind that grass from seed and that from sod are different. Sod is usually a specific cultivar with certain nicer characteristics (celebrities). Seed is more like the general population, including riffraff. Bermuda sod is much nicer than Bermuda seed. Some grasses, like zoysia may be difficult to grow from seed. I think I heard it takes a long time. You can explore that.

Ok thanks!

Yardvaark, what variety of zoysia did you have? That seems to be critically important. Also was yours under heavy traffic from dogs?

All the zoysia I have seen in South Texas was very slow to spread. I wish I knew what variety they had, but even the owners did not know. It was installed by a company and they thought zoysia was zoysia. It was also sensitive to disease and often removed. There are still two zoysia yards in the neighborhood where I lived. Neither one is a showcase lawn due to the quirky nature of the turf. Here's a picture of one of the yards.

As you can see from the fancy house and garden, these people throw a lot of money into their landscaping, but every year or two it gets this disease in the same spot. Once that happens, the grass will remain dead there until the following April when it returns like normal. This yard also has a chronically thin spot to the left outside the view. They have some dense trees shading the area, and the zoysia can't survive there.

@dchall, I wish I could recall what variety Zoysia, but can't. However, it was the only variety of it that seemed to be sold here at that time (several years back.) At the sod distributor where I purchased it, they had had a sizable lawn of it as a demo yard. A couple of years after ripping mine out, I had cause to return to the sod company where I purchased it. There demo yard was then gone, too. I'm guessing they were promoting it, but that it really was not well suited for our climate. The traffic my Zoysia got was light to none. No dogs. The sum of it was that it grew well and fast ... but couldn't take either the soil, heat or rain.

Thanks Yardvaark. I see the full page zoysia ads in the magazines and just have to sigh. Obviously they are making money - they haven't changed their ad in 50 years.

I tried zoysia in an area of deep shade when I was in San Antonio. I planted the plugs about April and by July it was suddenly growing. In fact it was all growing at the same time and growing in a 5-ft distance outside the border where I planted it. The variety I planted was called Shadow Turf from the Turfalo company. They no longer carry that grass. But anyway right after I planted the plugs, the tree casting all the shade broke a major limb. By the time the tree trimmers got done, the new plugs were getting 5 hours of direct sun every day. With all the sun, the common bermuda got a foothold in my natural driveway next to the zoysia. I thought the zoysia would compete well against the bermuda, but it did not. At first it was a simple head to head, mutual invasion. Then the area dried out and both grasses went dormant. At the first rainfall, the bermuda woke up but the zoysia did not. That was the end for the zoysia.

When in Atlanta, though I didn't have one, I loved the zoysia lawns. They were the most beautiful ... winter and summer. It was beautiful in Florida, too, for one year :-) I think it's a heat/lack of cold thing.