Best Grass for North Carolina?

Turfgrass in Central North Carolina

There are many different turf grasses that can be grown in the US. Here, in central North Carolina, we have one foot in the north and one foot in the south. Summers can be very hot for cool-season grasses like tall fescue. Winters can be very cold for warm-season grasses like bermuda. Any grass grown here as a lawn has challenges. Selecting the most appropriate grass is important to maintain the aesthetics of a property. Let’s discuss the factors that influence the choice of best grass for North Carolina.

What is the best grass for North Carolina? This is the question we most often receive. Usually our answer is, it depends. Grass choice starts with selecting the right plant for the right conditions. Here in central North Carolina we have several different soil types and various growing conditions. You really don’t have to travel far, and the growing conditions change rapidly. Twenty miles in one direction and the lawns are predominately bermuda or centipede while 20 miles in the other direction and the lawns are predominately a tall fescue and kentucky bluegrass mix. So, what is the best grass for your North Carolina yard?

Do you or does your yard make the Choice of Best Grass?

Most people start from personal preference. Maybe you don’t like how the warm season grasses like bermuda, zoysia and centipede go brown (dormant) in the winter. Maybe you don’t like the frustration many people experience with tall fescue through the summer. Personally, I’ve lived many different places across the US and central North Carolina can be one of the more challenging locations to grow a lawn. The key to success when growing a lawn is to understand and meet the needs of that particular grass. Color outside of the lines and the grass will be much more vulnerable to extreme weather, weeds, insects and disease. It’s similar to how much more susceptible we are to catching colds when we burn the candle at both ends: not enough sleep, poor eating habits and little exercise. Rarely works to our benefit. A lawn is no different.

Let’s start with a brief description of some of the grasses we grow here.

Best Grass Choices

Tall Fescue

Tall fescue is a cool-season bunch grass, meaning that grows most vigorously in spring and fall and is NOT a spreading grass. That is why we have the fall ritual of aerating and seeding. This grass is generally green year-round. While irrigation systems are not required, occasional watering (as needed) in summer will keep the grass alive during the long hot/dry periods. We define hot as above 85 degrees. Over-watering creates a whole other set of problems that we’ll cover at another time. Tall fescue is looking for a minimum of 4 hours of sunlight, preferably direct light. The earlier in the day the lawn gets that sunlight, the better. Late day full sun in the summer can be very hard on tall fescue.

Bermuda

Bermuda is a warm-season grass that is both rhizomatous and stoloniferous. All those words mean is that the grass spreads below the soil surface as well as above the soil surface. As a warm-season grass, it is very efficient at photosynthesis (remember that one from grade school?) at high temperatures. The word I use to describe bermuda is aggressive. It can be invasive to areas you don’t want it if it has the nutrients, sunlight and water to support rapid growth. Bermuda is looking for 8-10 hours of direct sun a day. This means that areas receiving less sunlight produce a thin stand of grass. Bermuda starts greening up anywhere from mid-March to mid-May depending on how quickly the soil warms up. It is the grass best-adapted to growing in central North Carolina if the right site conditions exist.

Zoysia

Similar to bermuda, zoysia is also a warm-season grass that is both rhizomatous and stoloniferous. Zoysia is a slower grower requiring fewer nutrients and mowing. It is usually looking for at least 6 hours of direct sunlight to produce a thick lawn. During very hot and dry stretches zoysia may go dormant in the summer but typically bounces back very well. Once zoysia is damaged, it is slow to fill back in. If you are concerned about herbicides and want the grass that will best compete with weeds, this is the best choice if if grown under favorable conditions. Many varieties of zoysia can experience damage from fungal disease, most frequently during the fall and spring while soil temperatures are transitioning between 50 and 70 degrees.

Centipede

Centipede is also a slow-growing warm-season grass, however it is only stoloniferous (spreads above the soil surface). Going by the name “lazy man’s grass”, some people like centipede due to its low maintenance requirements in common areas. Centipede has an apple green color as opposed to being a dark green. It prefers more acidic soil and fertilizers low in nitrogen and phosphorous. Centipede is very sensitive to herbicides and is fairly easy to kill. Centipede lawns are more often grown in the more open, silty loam soils on the south and east side of Wake County. These soils are easier for centipede to root into, while the heavier clays turn into concrete when they dry out in the summer. Ok, not quite concrete, but try to pull a soil sample from this clay when it is dry and I’ll think you’ll agree with the description.

Other Grasses …

There are other grasses grown in this area. I’ve seen buffalograss, St. Augustine, perennial ryegrass, fine fescues and others. They are better as niche grasses serving a specific purpose in special areas. It is harder to make generalizations about those grasses when they are grown in this area. Again, you don’t have to go too far to find some of these grasses commonly grown. As an example, St. Augustine is very common along the North Carolina coast.

One last comment about the needs of a grass plant. There is no substitute for sunlight. Fertilizer is not food. Fertilizer contains nutrients that are necessary for the plant to produce food from sunlight. More fertilizer will NOT compensate for lack of sunlight. Extra fertilizer will however, make more nutrients available to support a more vigorous weed population, if that is your goal.

So, what is the best grass for your lawn?

Consider the growing conditions that exist in your yard. Regarding growing grass, realism will pay off much better than optimism. After servicing thousands of lawn care customers, I have still not met one that could “will” a grass to grow where it doesn’t want to grow. To select the best grass for your North Carolina property think about:

• amount, timing and quality of light; look at trees, structures, anything that creates shade
• slopes: they increase or decrease the intensity of soil temperatures; think south & west = hot soil, north & east = cool soil
• slopes: they decrease the amount of time that water can soak into the soil; water that runs quickly off is less than useless to the lawn
• low spots with poor drainage; grass roots suffocate in saturated soils
• availability (or not) of irrigation or willingness to occasionally drag hoses to water
• air flow on the property; lots of fences, shrubs, and/or structures restrict air flow, creating stagnant air and associated problems, mostly fungal diseases
• your tolerance for imperfection; all lawns have weeds and brown spots at some point in time

Other Resources

All of the grasses we have discussed can be grown successfully in this region. Future posts will go into more depth on various topics we have touched upon here. As an additional resource I encourage you to read Carolina Lawns, A Guide to Maintaining Quality Turf in the Landscape published by the NC Cooperative Extension Service. One last comment about requesting professional assistance in selecting a grass: choose someone who maintains grass. Frequently, professionals who only install lawns are not tasked with keeping your lawn alive and thriving once the installation is complete. This is known as the tailgate guarantee. Once the tailgate goes up, the guarantee is over. Sod always looks awesome when it is first installed, how will it look in a year? Site appropriate selection is the most dominant factor influencing success.

Site conditions of your property dictate what grass can thrive. I always hope to avoid conversations that go like, “well, sir, the only way that bermuda is going to grow on that side of your house is to burn your house down”. Ok, a little hyperbolic but I think you get my point. As in all good relationships, we only prosper when you (or your lawn!) prospers.