Which Grass Seed to Use?

Cool Weather Grasses

• Cool season grasses grow best in the spring and fall. Bentgrass is a fine bladed grass used for golf putting areas and formal gardens. It's not common to see this grass in lawns. Kentucky Bluegrass is in many mixes, and has a deep green to blue green color with fine blades. Tall fescue and creeping fescue are drought tolerant, but a little coarser than Kentucky bluegrass. Annual ryegrass is a bright green grass often used to kick-start a lawn but dies in winter, as opposed to perennial ryegrass, which overwinters.

Warm Weather and Transitional Grasses

• Warm weather areas have high summer temperatures and few sustained freezes. These grasses grow best during summer, and often are more successful planted as plugs rather than seeds. Transitional areas are in between the warm weather and cool weather areas and require a blend of grass seeds from both climate types. Any of the fescues are good cool weather types for transitional areas. Some good warm weather varieties are Bahiagrass and St Augustine, both coarse grasses, and Bermuda and Zoysiagrass which are finer textured.

High Traffic vs. Low Traffic

• Some grasses tolerate foot traffic better than others. Kentucky bluegrass needs to be mixed with more durable grasses if used in high traffic areas. Centipede is a southern grass that won't tolerate much traffic. The fescues, perennial ryes, and Bermuda are good for higher traffic areas and will probably be a part of a retail high traffic grass seed blend. These grasses are a little coarser and don't break down as easily.

Shade Tolerant Grasses

• One challenge home gardeners face is growing grass seed in shady areas. While no grass seed will thrive in the shade, some are more tolerant than others. Southern grasses are less shade tolerant than northern grasses as a rule, but the best bet for the south is St. Augustine grass. It won't grow well, but it tolerates much more shade than others. The fescues are a good choice for northern or transitional areas.