The Best Grass Seed For Louisiana
When you own a home, you want to beautify both the inside and outside of your property, which means ensuring you have a healthy, green lawn. And to grow beautiful lawn grasses, you’ll need to consider the weather, soil type, and other factors in your state.
In Louisiana, residents plant warm-season grasses that grow well in light shade and full sun. The state is one of two in the entire country that is completely fit for growing warm-season grasses everywhere in the state.
Some of Louisiana’s most beautiful lawn grasses include bermudagrass, St. Augustine grass, centipede grass, and Chinese lawn grass. These and other varieties can help you create a lovely lawn. But in addition to warm-season grasses, some parts of North Louisiana are well-suited to cool-season grasses.
But how do you choose which grasses to plant on your Louisiana lawn? Let’s explore the types of soil, maintenance requirements, and popular grasses in this state so you can get a better sense of how to grow the best Louisiana lawns.
Louisiana Soil Conditions for Growing Grass Seeds
Louisiana has incredible soil diversity. Factors in the local environment, such as soil pH, topography, climate, and living organisms in the soil, will influence what you can grow. Because the state has so many different conditions, there are more than 300 soil types in Louisiana.
The state’s official soil is the Ruston soil series, and there are more than 11 major land resource areas with different soils. Most of them have the terms loess and alluvium in their names. These terms indicate good soil quality.
No matter which Louisiana soil type you have in your yard, it’s probably slightly acidic due to the higher levels of rainfall in the state. These soils have many nutrients but require proper fertilization to create a lush garden and control weeds.
Your lawn’s success also depends on the hardiness zones, which indicate the soil temperature. It’s essential for you to match your grass seed with its hardiness zones, so you don’t plant cool-season grasses in extremely warm soils or vice versa.
Louisiana has five distinct hardiness zones with temperatures ranging from 10 to 35°F. These warmer temperatures support many grass seed types, so you can grow some of the most popular grasses in your garden.
The Best Time to Plant Grass Seeds in Louisiana
Warm-season grasses are the only permanent grasses you can grow in Louisiana, and as such, you should be careful to plant them at the right time. Planting at the wrong time, when the temperatures are too high or too low, can make your grasses patchy and unhealthy.
The best time to plant grasses that can survive summer in Louisiana is early spring or fall. You should start fertilizing your soil in mid-April to prepare it for seeding. You can either seed in May or in September. A fall planting is recommended if you have sandy soils that are well-suited to succeed during the winter.
You can then overseed your lawn with ryegrass seed in October. This will add some nitrogen, which will make your grasses last until the warm season starts again. Be careful not to apply too much nitrogen because it can damage the seeds.
Best Grass Seed for Louisiana
Warm-season grasses are the best choice for your lawn in Louisiana. Other grasses will not perform as well because of the temperature. But you should also pick the right type of warm-season grasses, depending on your lawn’s foot traffic and whether you’re planting the lawn in the shade or sun.
So here are some of the most popular grass seeds for you to grow in Louisiana.
Bermudagrass
One of the most widely grown grasses in Louisiana is Bermudagrass. This type of grass is extremely adaptable and has a dense texture that can withstand heavy foot traffic. Bermudagrass spreads aggressively when left on its own and could grow up to six feet tall without proper lawn care.
This grass type requires a lot of sunlight and is not very shade tolerant, so you should plant it in the full sun. It is drought tolerant but requires a lot of water to maintain its beautiful color. Bermudagrass can grow in alkaline and acid soils, but if your soil is poorly drained, the grass grows slowly.
Centipede Grass
Centipede grass is otherwise known as lazy man’s grass because of the low level of maintenance that it requires. Anyone can grow it with minimum effort.
Centipede grass is a slow-growing grass with a lime green color. As a medium-textured grass, it is most adaptable to acidic soils and grows best in well-drained soil.
You should add enough iron to your soil before planting because if not, centipede grass will experience iron chlorosis, which makes lawns look yellowish. You can never add too much fertilizer with iron to this type of grass—the more you add, the greener your grass will be.
This type of grass is not very wear-tolerant, so you shouldn’t plant it in lawns that experience high traffic. It has better shade tolerance than Bermudagrass, but it is not as tolerant as St. Augustine grass.
Zoysia Grass
Zoysia grass has fantastic cold tolerance. You can plant it throughout the year because it will withstand the winter. It has a deep root system that forms a thick, soft carpet, making for a good quality lawn across the state, from Shreveport to Baton Rouge.
Zoysia grass is shade tolerant and germinates quickly when enough water is added.
Carpet Grass
Carpet grass grows well in acidic, sandy soils, which are primarily present across lawns in Central Louisiana and Acadiana. This type of grass is coarse and has a light-green color, making for an attractive turf.
It is tolerant to foot traffic and quickly recovers from damage. It has a low fertility requirement, so you don’t need to add a lot of fertilizer. But, you need to mow it frequently because weeds love to grow in the soil around carpet grass.
Turf-Type Fescue
This coarse-textured, dark-green grass is an excellent type of grass seed for permanent lawns in Louisiana, especially in the North. Fescues are cool-season grasses that come in many types, including tall fescue, chewing fescue, and creeping red fescue.
They go dormant during the summer but will look beautiful in the winter.
Turf-type fescue tolerates drought, but you should water it frequently to delay it from going dormant as soon as temperatures increase in the summer.