I imagine that if you asked most people about lawn grass, they’d fall asleep before you finished the question. Let’s face it – “watching grass grow” is an expression for “boredom.” I personally don’t have much patience with grass; I just want to mow it once a week and get back to my flower beds and vegetable garden.
Kentucky 31’ is a very common fescue often used by contractors when seeding new lawns.
Photo Credit: Lane Greer
This grass seed mix is specially formulated for shady areas.
Photo Credit: Lane Greer
At our house, we had a lawn that looked like it was in pretty good shape when we first moved in. Then spring arrived, and I saw bare patches and dead grass everywhere. Since most grass looks pretty much the same to me (uh, it’s green and it looks like grass), I wondered how to diagnose my problem.
Upon further investigation, I eventually discovered that the wrong grass had been planted in my yard.
Grasses are divided into cool-season and warm-season grasses, which gives you a clue as to when they grow well. Cool-season grasses grow early in the spring and have better color when temperatures are cool (below 75 degrees F). They’re typically planted in the North and Midwest. They turn brown and go dormant during drought (unless they’re irrigated), and they’re semi-evergreen in winter.
The best-known cool-season grasses are:
- Fescues: This group includes red fescue, creeping fescue and tall fescue. (The fescues grow in shade.)
- Ryegrass: Perennial ryegrass lives for about three years; annual rye lives for only one year. Two great things about rye are its fast germination and great green color. (Don’t plant rye in shade.)
- Kentucky bluegrass: So called because of its blue-green color, Kentucky bluegrass can be used by itself or in combination with other grasses. (Don’t plant it in shade.)
Warm-season grasses grow best in higher temperatures (80-95 degrees F), so they’re better for regions like the South. They’re drought-tolerant and resume growth when soils warm. As you would expect, these grasses turn brown when the weather turns cool in fall. Many of the new, improved forms of warm-season grasses can’t be started from seed and have to be bought as plugs or sod, which is, of course, much more expensive.
The best-known warm-season grasses are:
- St. Augustine: This grass is very thick, very green and very resistant to wear and tear. It’s also impossible to find seed, so plan to sod or plug. (It’ll grow in some shade, as well as in full sun.)
- Bermuda: This one you either love or hate. (I fall into the second category.) It makes a great lawn and an even better interloper into flower beds. Thick and tough, it’ll literally grow on concrete.
- Zoysia: Zoysia grass is very tough- and drought-resistant, but it grows slowly, so be prepared to wait for it.
When buying grass seed, you can spend a little more money to buy just one type, such as Bermuda grass. Mixes are usually cheaper, but they may contain more annual seed, which dies out in a year and has to be replaced.
To fix my homely lawn in the Pacific Northwest, I chose a middle-of-the-road approach and overseeded with perennial and annual rye, so I got a quick green-up and longer staying power. I suppose I could’ve chosen the Carl Spackler approach. You remember Carl – the greenskeeper in the movie Caddyshack, played by the inimitable Bill Murray. Carl created his own hybrid grass: a cross of Kentucky bluegrass and northern California sensimilla. With that blend, watching grass grow would take on a whole new meaning…
