A guide to the different types of lawn seeds
 (Read 50+ times)
By Jared Garrett
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Ryegrass, bluegrass, and bermuda. The next shelf contains bahiagrass, carpetgrass, and even something called zoysiagrass. Then of course you might see some fescue. What is this stuff? How many types of grass could there possibly be? And does it matter which one you use? It certainly does matter, if you want to have a healthy lawn year-round. However, it would be impossible to provide a complete guide to seeds and planting procedure in this limited space. Thus, we will explore the most common, hardy grasses of each of the three zones in the United States of America.
First let's look at the Cold Zone. As you might guess, this zone comprises the northern states, Picture a line that starts near the top of California and runs more or less straight east: through Nevada, Central Utah and Colorado and so on. Everything to the north of this line is the cold zone. If you live in this area, this is your paragraph! The seeds you get will do very well, growing actively in the spring and fall but going fairly inactive in the other seasons. If you want a low maintenance lawn that will do well in your cold zone, go with bluegrass (not the music) or ryegrass. Each of these seeds actually has more than one type. For bluegrass, I recommend Kentucky-style. For ryegrass I would go with the perennial style. Now if you want a lawn that knocks people's socks off, you may want to try bentgrass (I kid you not) and fescue. These are fairly high maintenance grasses however. In fact, bentgrass is usually found mostly on the putting green!
Next you want to imagine a line cutting across California, a couple hundred miles north of its southern border, and then to the east through New Mexico, Arizona and so on. The area to the north of this line and to the south of the line described above is the Transition Zone. Transition Zone lawns are more difficult to figure out. Why? Basically because there is no such thing as transition-style grass seed. In essence, you will need to get a mixture of Cold and Warm zone seeds and plant that. This means that during each cold and warm season you will actually have a different species of grass on your lawn. So to avoid patchiness, be sure to get that grass in thick. This lawn wants lots of aeration to keep that root system healthy. The seeds that might work best to mix would be zoysia, bermuda and buffalograss for warm seeds and mix these with maybe fescue, ryegrass or bluegrass.
Which brings us to the Warm Zone: the southern states of the U.S.A. Obviously the biggest challenge in the Warm Zone will be the extreme heat. The grasses that have been shown to work best for this area include, as I mentioned earlier, bahiagrass, bermuda, and zoysia. However, you can find a grass called centipede which is very low maintenance and, while it doesn't look like a putting green, looks pretty nice if well maintained. Bahiagrass is actually nice and low maintenance as well.
So, fellow gardener, I hope this helps you in your quest for the right seeds. May the hose be with you.
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Author Bio Box: Jared Garrett
 http://www.helium.com/user/show/45690
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