North Carolina turfgrass guide
Carolina Lawns
A straight guide to the grasses that grow here and how to keep yours looking right. Whether your lawn is cool season or warm season decides almost everything else about how you care for it.
The Triangle sits in the transition zone, a little too hot for one camp and a little too cold for the other.
Planting calendar
What should I plant right now?
Pick a date and see which grasses are in season for the Triangle, what opens up soon, and what to hold off on, with the soil temperature to wait for.
Open the planting calendar1 grass is in their planting window today
- Bluegrass, Tall Fescue and Fine Fescue mix
The short version
Almost everything else about your lawn follows from this one split.
Cool season
Tall fescue and the like grow in spring and fall and stay green most of the year, but they sweat through our summers.
Warm season
Bermuda and zoysia love the heat and shrug off drought, then go tan and dormant all winter.
Neither is right or wrong. It comes down to your sun, your soil, and whether you would rather fight the summer or the winter.
Cool-season grasses
Green most of the year, happiest in the Piedmont and mountains.
Warm-season grasses
Love the heat, go dormant and tan in winter.
Bermuda GrassFull sun, heat, and traffic. It thrives where fescue struggles.
Zoysia GrassDense, tough, and slow. The carpet-like lawn that chokes out weeds.
Centipede GrassThe closest thing to a set-it-and-forget-it lawn we have.
St. Augustine GrassThe warm-season grass that actually handles shade, best near the coast.
Carpet GrassFor wet, low-fertility ground where better grasses won't cooperate.
Bahia GrassTough, deep-rooted, and undemanding on poor sandy soil.