Hey Cirillo and Bonnar Bloke,
Dormancy sucks particularly if you love looking after turf. You guys should start looking into zoysia matrellas for some more shade tolerance, the only problem is I'm not sure if they handle the cool all too well. ShadeTuff is sold commercially up here (in Brissie) for about the same price as Sir Walter. I know Lawn Solutions Australia (the Sir Walter group of growers) have brought in a number of zoysias from the states. I reckon Zeon Zoysia which is on the Olympics golf course in Rio will become the next Sir Walter in Australia in the next 5-10 years. Zoysia japonicas can also handle shade (50-60%) although don't have the fineness of leaf that the Matrellas do (they are much similar to Tall Fescues) but you can still mow it low. I have seen Empire Zoysia mown at 11mm being used on tees before. I know they have some cool tolerance though as wild genotypes grow as far up in the latitude zone as Korea. You can buy a seeded zoysia japonica cultivar zenith online from seed stores and I think Viro cells (plugs) of empire zoysia online too. Might be worth a trial in a small section. As far as more cool tolerance and shade tolerance in couch goes I know some growers have Northbridge and Latitude 36 up here in trials (they aren't for sale yet). Lat 36 was bred for cool tolerance and grows high up in the transition zone in the states. The LSA growers have TifGrand and TifTuff on trial and were bred for shade and drought tolerance. You probably wont see these around for a few years though. Your other option is just have 1 week of dormancy (if that) and grow grass all year round by moving up to Brisbane, you can grow the stuff on a rock up here
.
