Hey, yall! Welcome back to my Toad Talk.
This week, we are going to talk about grass. We are going to cover the different kinds of grass, how to sow, how to fertilize, and which works best for you.
OK - first of all. Grass isn't just grass. There are so many different kinds of grass, so let's see what is best for us here in Zone 8a.
If you have a nice, shady lawn, you'd want to go with something like a fescue. It doesn't require as much sunlight, but nothing lives in complete shade. It's pretty hardy, but does not like full sun or extreme heat. Make sure you water regularly, and always water first thing in the morning, or at the end of the day after the sun has gone down. If you water during the heat of the day, the water is magnified by the sun, and the sun burns up your grass and plants.
NEVER, EVER water in the middle of the day.
Bermuda grass is good if you like a beautiful, thick lawn, but it grows so fast that you'll be mowing more frequently. Bermuda is a seasonal grass, and for that reason, your beautiful thick lawn won't stay beautiful all year. After the temps drop below around 72, and until they come back up to above 72, your Bermuda grass goes dormant, and turns brown. You know what this looks like. You see it all winter long in the south. 😄
Centipede is similar to Bermuda in that it's a seasonal grass. It gives more of a fescue look with a Bermuda hardiness, but it's expensive, and hard to maintain. It yellows easily, if it's not fertilized properly it won't stay green, and it's high maintenance. Just like a Zoysia, it's a nice grass but you have to baby it to keep it looking healthy.
My personal favorite is Emerald Green Zoysia, but again - it's just more expensive and a higher level of maintenance involved. Also, Zoysia is not something that you can seed. It will not easily germinate from seed in our zone. It's best to purchase in sod form by the pallet, or by the block.
The best affordable option for our zone would probably be fescue. It germinates from seed in this zone, it takes less time to get a full, substantiated lawn, and it stays green until the first frost. If your lawn is more in direct sunlight, you'll want to go with the Bermuda, or maybe Centipede or Zoysia.
If you are going to sow yourself from seed, make sure first of all that the seed your are looking for germinates well in our zone. Then, purchase a spreader from somewhere like Lowe's or Home Depot. If you can find one in a local business, buy there first. I'd much rather my money go to a local business than a big box store, but sometimes, we have to utilize what we have. The spreaders range from around $25+ for the handheld spreader, to around $75 for the push-spreader. If I might make a suggestion, use the push-spreader. It produces a better layer of seed, more uniformly laid out, and won't leave big patches in your grass. If you are planting a lawn for the first time, after you seed, lay down hay on top, to keep the animals from eating your grass, and the erosion from washing it away. If you have a stabilized lawn, and you're just reseeding, you don't need to lay down hay. Just water it very well.
You don't need a special fertilizer - just use something like Scott's Turf Builder. You can even use it in the grass spreader that you have. Just make sure you rinse it out well when you're finished.
And there you go! Happy barefoot in the grass season!
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