When thinking about growing a new lawn, it's natural to be curious about the types of grass that exist around the world. The object of a new lawn is often that search for colour - for the perfect tinge of green which lights up any garden. So, what types of grass might you be able to utilise to grow your perfect green lawn? Which is the most green grass?There are dozens and dozens of types of grass, which to normal person all seem very similar.
Again, it's green so it must be grass! Well, when it comes down to it, as far as we're concerned in the UK, there aren't that many grasses that we can consider, and they are: Chewings fescue Creeping red fescue Brown top bent Perennial ryegrass Annual meadow grass. To make things even more complicated, each variety of grass has a large amount of what are called cultivars, the name used to talk about interbreeding of grass types to distill all of the best characteristics into one grass strain for a given situation. An example would be, high tolerance to drought or a good resistance to wear. Again, you may not need to take this into consideration unless your garden is being maintained with a really clear use in mind, such as it's use as a croquet lawn or a golf-style putting green.Easily the most widespread grass found in lawns in the UK is perennial ryegrass as it has consistently been a great deal cheaper than any other variety, and it is also very resistant to a large amount of use, such as foot traffic. This is a great deal thanks to the fact that it's a fast growing grass which can repair itself quickly after being put under stress.
This is definitely a very useful characteristic when, for example, it's being used in a play area. The negative aspects of perennial ryegrass is that it needs constant mowing, and at regular intervals, at least twice per week. It also needs a large amount of fertiliser application to keep it growing and healthy. And, lastly, it produces huge amount of grass cuttings which you then need to dispose of. Thanks to these numerous reasons, I would always counsel against using ryegrass on its own, and this is even considering the fact that modern cultivars are much slower growing and finer leaved than in the past.The other most common lawn grass in the UK is annual meadow grass. This could be considered surprising as it is never introduced deliberately. Annual meadow grass is classified as a weed grass, and can easily colonise and survive in the most unwelcoming environments, such as pavement cracks, largely thanks to its ability to create large amounts of seed and the presence of a very shallow, dense root system. Due to this opportunist nature, this grass will quickly colonise any areas of bare soil in your lawn, whether produced by disease, wear or otherwise.
Some think this is a good characteristic for their grass, but as you might be able to tell from the name, it's an annual grass, and this means it dies or becomes very weak in the colder seasons. It also means that it reproduces by creating a huge amount of seed heads which look very untidy on any lawn. A few of the meadow grass plants may survive and become a type of perennial but they are still very much less resilient than others.Finally, we can talk about the remaining three grass types which were mentioned above: creeping red fescue, chewings fescue, and brown top bent. These grasses are most commonly used on bowling greens and golf courses, being very fine leaved, quite slow to grow, and producing strong deep roots.These characteristics have all come about due to the fact that all three are grasses that are naturally found in quite infertile ground, such as linksland; the salt marshes and sand dunes that are found between any beach and the adjoining farmland.
These traits are very desirable in a golf course designer's grass sward as they need much less water and less nutrients via fertiliser, and even more importantly, the need much less regular cutting. The most effective ground cover is gained by using a mix of two, or perhaps even three, of these types of grasses. The grasses very much complement each other in terms of growing habits, and any issues with disease will normally catch only one variety at a time, so cutting down on overall damage.So, to tie things up, the perfect lawn would be one that is built from the bottom up using free draining materials and crowned with a good combination of bent and fescue grasses. In reality, though, most lawns these days are created on quite unsuitable ground with a random mix of grass cover, some ok, some certainly not ok. When building your own lawn, think about the use you wish to make of it, and it might be that you need to compromise between the best looking types of grass and the most hard wearing varieties. Overall, a mix is best, to achieve the best of both worlds. Good luck with your growing!
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