DIYbanter - View Single Post - No-mow, easy-grow grass?

dpb

On 9/10/2012 12:57 PM, wrote:
....

Also, I'm wondering how John Q Public gets thousands
of grasses to experiment with. Most of the seed out
there that you can buy in a 7lb bag is a blend. And when
you can buy a specific seed variety, it's frequently hard
to find a supplier and then comes in commercial quantities,
ie at least a 50lb bag, wholesale only, etc. It's kind of
hard to imagine that JQP could stumble on some great
new blend of seed when you have researchers the world
over working on exactly that for decades. Not impossible,
but you have to wonder.
....

One presumes this guy was/is a fanatic wrt to this quest. Given that,
it's not at all unlikely he reads the sod/turf professional mag's, etc.,
and it's certainly not difficult to find the listings of the various
seed producers and their various varieties and there's a "veritable
plethora" of stuff available from the various universities w/ turf grass
programs and the annual evaluation summaries published, an so forth for
hints of what are potential cultivars to try...

I'd guess he did precisely that--order directly from the seed
producers--there's nothing in these that is at all exotic--the newest
cultivar I noticed was one release for commercial use in the early
2000's--the FC-11 fescue.

In an area such as he is, "drought" and lower moisture tolerance is
certainly a relative thing as compared to the mid- or west coast and
certainly the temperature is much more temperate than out here--you'd
have to water the dickens out of any/all of those to get them to survive
here.

The ideal low-maintenance grasses here would include buffalo, blue- and
sideoats grama, etc., etc., ...

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