What you need to know about growing grass in North Carolina
By Mary ConroyOur clay soil and the heat of our summers make growing and maintaining a grass lawn almost a full-time job. I have concluded it is actually easier to plant natural areas and berms with evergreens. I use grass as my accent rather than the focal point of my yard. Evergreens will create a year-round interest in your garden, and once established they take little water, unlike grass.
If you do want to plant and maintain a grass lawn, here are a few of the grasses that do well in our area.
Centipede is a warm-season grass, which means that it is green in summer and brown or dormant aboveground in winter. Centipede is a sod-forming, creeping grass. The leaf blades are broader and coarser than those of hybrid Bermuda grass or zoysia grass. Centipede forms a loose turf which is not very wear-resistant. Its natural color is yellow-green.
Bermuda grass will grow well in a variety of soil types, including sands, loams, silts and clays. Bermuda grass grows best at high temperatures (85 to 95 degrees F.) and grows very little when the night temperature falls below 60. Therefore, Bermuda grass varieties are most practical in the Piedmont and Coastal Plain. The hybrid varieties, which vary in their winter hardiness, are recommended for soils too sandy to grow good row crops or clover-fescue mixtures. Once established, this grass is difficult to get rid of due to its rhizomes that spread underground.
Tall fescue is good for high-traffic home lawns and shady areas. It is relatively drought-tolerant, but does require additional watering in extreme conditions. Tall fescue will grow in either partial shade or sun. It grows well beneath trees that shed their leaves in winter.
Zoysia grass is the most elegant, fine textured lawn grass grown in the South. In many ways, it is the epitome of what we want and expect in a lawn. It is lush, dark green and forms a dense cover. Zoysia is very resistant to insects and diseases.
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