When you drive past homes in your car, you may enjoy looking out at the yards and seeing the vast expanses of lush green grass, interspersed with the occasional flower or vegetable garden. A rock or water garden with an appropriate statue might catch your eye. While you may know the names of every flower that you see, can you say the same about the grass?
Grass isn't just "grass." There are almost as many types of grass as there are types of flowers, and like flowers you need to choose the appropriate grass for your lawn. Grass that you're going to use for your lawn should, really, be called lawn grass, to differentiate it from other types of grasses.
Before choosing your lawn grass, you need to know as much about the lawn as possible. Of what is the soil composed? Clay, loam, sand? You'll want just the right proportion of these materials to ensure the best growing environment for your new grass. And that goes for the pH balance as well - the level of acidity or alkalinity in your soil.
Are there a lot of trees in your yard, with branches spread wide? This can interfere with the amount of sunlight that manages to filter down onto your lawn and feed your grass. If you want to keep those trees (and if you have trees on your lawn that are over a hundred years old, there's a lot of history there) than you'll want a type of grass that doesn't need a lot of sunlight.
If your area gets a lot of rain, you'll want a type of grass that loves all that wet stuff. If your area is lucky to get a few inches of rain a year, you'll want a different type of grass.
Then there's the color. Grass color varies widely, from dark greens to light yellows. It's nice to be able to vary the color of your lawn - but it might get annoying if you have vast amounts of dark green with patches of yellow intermixed.
So, what types of lawn grasses are there?
For grass that grows quickly in cool climates, you'll want to consider the grass families such as bluegrass, bentgrass (usually used for golf courses), ryegrasses (used at the Wimbledon tennis courts) , fescues (used for bowling greens) and Grama grass (praire grass, good for erosion control). They each have their own particular properties, so you'll want to investigate them all, either on the web or by talking to a gardening professional in your area.
For grass that grows quickly in warmer climates, consider zoysiagrass, bermudagrass (great for drought tolerance), St. Augustine Grass, bahiagrass (great in Florida because it tolerates salt well), centipedegrass, carpetgrass or buffalograss
You can research all these types of grasses on the web, and it makes for fascinating reading. But the best way to find out what kind of lawn grass is right for your area is to consult a garden professional near your home.
