Nearly every piece of lawn advice is species-specific, and applying centipede advice to Bermuda or St. Augustine advice to centipede is how lawns get damaged. Working out what you have takes about five minutes on your hands and knees.
Centipede
The default home lawn grass across Jefferson County and the Big Bend. Coarse-textured, a distinctly light apple-green colour, and it spreads by stolons that run visibly along the soil surface. The stems have a slightly zigzag look with short leaf segments, which is where the name comes from.
Centipede grows more slowly than the alternatives, which is part of its appeal. Low nitrogen requirement, prefers acidic soil, moderate shade tolerance, poor wear tolerance. It also greens up later in spring than Bermuda does, which alarms people every year unnecessarily.
St. Augustine
Broad, flat blades with a rounded tip, noticeably wider than centipede. Darker green. Also spreads by thick stolons across the surface. It has a folded leaf bud, which is a reliable identifier if you look closely at a new shoot.
Best shade tolerance of the common warm-season grasses, higher nitrogen requirement than centipede, and the most chinch bug pressure by a wide margin.
Bermuda
Fine-textured with narrow blades and a dense growth habit. Spreads by both stolons above ground and rhizomes below, which is why it invades other lawns so aggressively. Greys off quickly in drought and greens up first in spring.
Excellent wear tolerance, essentially no shade tolerance, and the highest maintenance requirement here — it wants frequent mowing at a low height.
Zoysia
Fine to medium texture, very dense, and it feels stiff underfoot compared with the others. Slow to establish and slow to recover from damage, but it makes the best-looking lawn of the group when it is grown well. Moderate shade tolerance and good wear tolerance.
Bahia
Coarse, open growth with a distinctive Y-shaped or V-shaped seed head on a tall stem. It is the grass on most roadsides and on a lot of rural acreage around here for good reason — deep rooted, genuinely drought tolerant, and it survives on very little.
Poor shade tolerance, coarse appearance, and those seed heads mean it needs mowing even when the leaf growth does not.
Why it changes what you do
- Mowing height differs meaningfully between species, and cutting one at another's height is the most common damage we see.
- Fertility — centipede wants a fraction of what Bermuda does, and over-feeding it causes decline.
- Herbicide safety — centipede and St. Augustine are sensitive to several products that are fine on Bermuda. The label lists tolerant species and it is not optional reading.
- Shade — St. Augustine tolerates it best, Bermuda not at all.
- Renovation — you cannot seed St. Augustine or most centipede lawns. They go in as sod, plugs or sprigs.
Mixed lawns are normal
A great many older yards in Monticello and around Lloyd and Capps are mixtures — centipede in the shaded areas, Bermuda invading the sunny edges, Bahia along the drive where somebody threw seed twenty years ago. That is not a failure, and it does not have to be fixed.
It does mean the program has to be built around the dominant grass and the most sensitive one, because a product safe on Bermuda may not be safe on the centipede next to it. Always check the label against every species present.
If you would rather have somebody who does this every week look at your yard and tell you straight what it needs, get in touch. We are based in Monticello and we cover Jefferson, Leon and Madison counties along with the South Georgia line.