Planting grass seed takes timing, planning, patience, and much more. But what is the best type of grass to plant? Planting a mixture of grass varieties is better for many reasons for your lawn. It creates greater disease and pest resistance, establishes quicker and fuller, and it expands the qualities and characteristics of your lawn.
When your lawn is planted with variety of grasses, your lawn as a whole will be better suited to withstand a disease or pest attack. For example, necrotic ring spot will attack only kentucky bluegrass. If your lawn has been planted with kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass, then the perennial ryegrass will not be harmed by necrotic ring spot. This means that your lawn will still have some green grass. This is just one example, but it is true for many diseases and insects.
Different varieties of grass will need different lengths of time to become established. Perennial ryegrass is quick to establish, and will start to create a lawn early in the planting process. However, kentucky bluegrass takes a while to become established and will take longer to create a uniform lawn. Along with different amounts of time to become established, perennial ryegrass will grow in clumps, and kentucky bluegrass will spread out. All of this helps to create a thicker lawn.
Different varieties of grass have different attributes. For example, fescues generally handle drought situations better than other varieties of grass. Perennial ryegrass can stand up to higher amounts of traffic than other varieties of grass. So having different varieties of grass in your lawn helps to get many different characteristics to survive different situations.
Planting grass seed involves many variables. Planting many varieties of grass helps to establish your lawn, and helps to keep it looking better through any problems that may arise from pests or from the environment.