The average homeowner looking at his front lawn sees a carpet of green grass – and that’s about it. Trained technicians, on the other hand, can identify the different turf varieties that make up the lawn and use that information to properly overseed to get the best mix of turf for the property. Moreover, on new lawn seedings, many landscape contractors will specify certain seed blends that will work well for their clients’ lawns. Doug Brede, research director of Simplot/Jacklin Seed, Post Falls, Idaho, notes that blending turf seed species is essential for healthy lawns.
“The biggest mistake a contractor can make is to use 100 percent of anything,” he explains. “Lawns do not have all one makeup to them and seed shouldn’t either. Mixing species gives you a diversity that’s especially important if a disease or insect comes along and kills off one variety in the blend. Rather than a completely dead lawn, you’ve still got some living color to work with.”
Depending on the type of turf that thrives in your area, Brede recommends a couple of blending ratios to get a quality lawn. One blend he recommends is 80-percent Kentucky bluegrass and 20-percent perennial ryegrass. In a ryegrass blend, Brede adds that the lawn can be fully overseed with 100-percent ryegrass, which will fill in quickly. Another good blend, he says, is 90—percent tall fescue and 10 percent bluegrass.
Most contractors in the industry already use turf seed blends, many of which are available in stock blends from turf seed manufacturers. Some companies, however, have custom blends created for their locations. For example, Bill Akehurst of Akehurst Landscape Service, Joppa, Md. explained that his company uses a very specific blend of four seed types for clients’ lawns.
“Here in the transition zone, we use 50-percent turf-type tall fescue and 50-percent perennial ryegrass,” he says. Akehurst’s blend includes 25 percent each of two turf-type tall fescues and 25 percent each of two perennial ryegrass varieties.
North of the border, Jeff Lowartz, turf specialist, Heritage Green, Ancaster, Ontario, uses a three-pronged seed blend for his Canadian customers. The “Elite Mix” is a custom blend of 35-percent Kentucky bluegrass, 35-percent perennial ryegrass and 30-percent creeping red fescue. “We’ve found that the Kentucky bluegrass grows well in irrigated sunny conditions, while the ryegrass and fescue grow well in shady conditions,” Lowartz says. On properties with both sun and shade, Lowartz says this blend transitions well from one exposure to the other.
In addition to creating biodiversity by using multiple seed species for full lawn applications, Brede notes that blending is a good solution in lawn-patching situations as well. “A lot of people get nervous about seeding of lawns areas that have been damaged by insects or disease because they think they’ll get a patchy look,” he says. “It’s like patching holes in a carpet – you have to have the same dye lot in order to match the carpet colors. In turf, if you’re using a blend you’ll see very few lawns with patchiness after the application.”
Find more information about proper seed applications in the April issue of Lawn & Landscape.
