CrawDude

One of the most effective and convenient products I use is an imidacloprid (insecticide) drench. You mix & pour the product at the base of the shrub, it’s uptaken by the roots and distributed systemically throughout the shrub. Offers pretty much season control of the most harmful azalea insects. As a bonus some companies, Fertilome and Bonide come to mind, sell a imidacloprid drench product that also contains a systemic fungicide, usually referred as 2 in 1 product.

Most retail garden centers, and perhaps the big box stores (HD or Lowe’s) carry those products. I prefer these products to spraying for time and convenience.

As mentioned, also fertilize with a general purpose acidic shrub fertilizer- the next 2 or 3 weeks, would be a good time to apply. Fertilome has a granular azalea fertlizer that contains imidachloprid insecticide - you might consider that product. A cup or 2 of elemental sulfur spread around the root zone of each azalea will help increase soil acidity (reduce soil pH) if you have non-acidic soil.

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Just laid zoysia about 3 weeks ago, post cold snap. Coming out of dormancy, no issues there. What would you recommend for a fertilizer/weed schedule over say the next 6 months?

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Not a zoysia “expert”, I’ll defer to other on the board in that regards, particularly ronk who is a professional and does this for a living but I’ll make these comments.

1. Newly laid sod - no pre-emergent herbicide until the sod-lawn becomes established, usually 4-6 months, and that information will be clearly stated on any pre-emergent herbicide label, so always read the label.

2. If needed, you will be able to use post-emergent herbicides fairly soon, after the sod is rooted in, say a couple months, but again read the herbicide label. Avoid Weed & Feed products (herbicides & fertilizer mixed together) - they are convenience products- best to implement weed control & fertilization as two separate activities.

3. Fertilization - most sod comes pre-fertilized, and believe Zoysia requires less nitrogen fertllizer than St Augustine or Bermudagrass. 1/2 to 1 pound of Nitrogen (N) “slow release” lawn fertilizer per 1000 sq ft per application, perhaps starting mid-April, and second application 3-4 months later - mid July. Do not exceed 2 lbs of N per 1000 soft per year (growing season). The application rate might be dependent on the Zoysia cultivar you have - I’ll defer to others on this.

4. As I read from others a reel mower is likely best for Zoysia? But most important, cut it at the appropriate height for grass health, 1 to 2 inches depending on the cultivar, but again it’s cultivar dependent so you might want to share that info, or even start a new thread. You’ll get many good recommendations/suggestions from those with Zoysia lawns.

Zoysiagrass - LSU AgCenter

Bryant is a Carrier product, and WeatherKing a Rheem product. Both are comparable in performance and reliability assuming a proper install.

Do both units have the same 10-year parts warranty provided by the manufacturer and labor warranty by the installing company? If different, consider the unit with the better warranty.

Pretty good pricing…..

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Granular, right. No need to water in liquid (generic prodiamine “old yeller” as I call it).

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Both granular and liquid (spray) pre-emergents need to be watered in - the active ingredient needs to be moved to the soil surface where the weed seeds are located to “kill” the weed seed embryos when they germinate. Even with a spray formulation of pre-emergent most-much of the compound will adhere to the grass blades and not make contact with the soil unless watered in. This is stated on the herbicide label - unfortunately you have to read all the “fine print”. :lol:

Prodiamine 65WDG Label - read the last paragraph, page 7

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I like to lay down some prodiamine spray on Vday in Lafayette as it tends to nail as a postemergent, some left over winter weeds and sticker weed I missed earlier,

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?? Did you mis-word this? Prodiamine is a pre-emergent, it has no post-emergent efficacy on winter weeds.

Well spray would provide you better control & accuracy along the edge of landscape beds, but in the lawn proper, your choice-preference. I would spray up to the border of the landscape bed unless you have shrubs planted close to the border, in which case I’d back away a bit. Read the product label.

Interesting. As I suspected, according to LA Dept of Agriculture & Forestry (LDAF) website Fertilome Weed Free Zone (manufactured by Voluntary Purchasing Groups, Inc; VPG, Inc) is only a restricted use pesticide (RUP) in Louisiana when sold in containers exceeding 1 quart in size. Container size, or volume quantity, purchase restrictions is not uncommon for a number of commonly used lawn-household pesticides.

Anyway, though DoYourOwn is technically not wrong, they could sell containers of Fertilome WFZ in Louisiana, 1 quart or smaller, to the general public if they chose to do so.

That said, you can buy Fertllome Weed Free Zone at most retail Garden Centers or Hardware Stores in container sizes of 1 quart or smaller in LA.

If you are interested, the 2025 RUPs for LA are in this 38 page file, page 36 for the Weed Free Zone restriction. I pulled this from the LDAF web site.

LDAF RUP List - 2025

You can purchases Rudd (=Rheem) online through AC wholesalers LINK. No experience with them but they provide pricing so at least you can compare to other suggestions. You’ll need to decide if you want to use R454B refrigerant (Rudd, etc, and just about all other major manufacturers) or R-32, the Daikan line…..Goodman, Amana, Daikan) for down the road when the evaporator coil leaks….lol. Cost & availability of R-454B was pretty problematic a while back compared to R-32, May have settled down now.

If you installed a mini-split for the LR, you should look to downsize the new unit, via manual J calculation You are a ME, piece of cake for you…..lol. Decent manual J, manual S, on-line calculator, LoadCalc, which I used to verily proper cooling & heating equipment sizing prior to my HVAC change out a few years ago. LINK

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I've got an older, established 8-10 acre pond that was drained after Katrina due to salvinia infestation. It has mostly been un managed in reference to fish. I would like to see if our fish population is healthy. Would that LSU link be who I should contact?

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An established pond that size requiring a fish population assessment using electrofishing boat-gear to make the assessment would require an outside firm-consultant. A couple companies are mentioned in this thread that do this. A couple others owned by professional fisheries biologists based in Baton Rouge, but do work around the state, are Aquatic Solutions LLC (Mark McElroy; no website) and Louisiana Pond Management (Ken Rust, Google their website) - I have no idea of the cost but wouldn’t be cheap.

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My question is, if I do split application, that is .415 for split app. or is it less since I use Specticle in fall?

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Yes 0.415 “now” (Feb) - it’s efficacy will have by & large dissipated by May, 2nd application of 0.415 late April-May, it’s efficacy dissipated by August, and then the Specticle application in Fall.