[Moondoggy]

I'm new to the forum and I'm looking for some advice on how to improve my lawn.

I live in the panhandle of NW Florida and the lawns in our subdivision are mainly centipede grass. My main problem seemd to be the shady areas of the lawn on the north side of my home, the north side of my privacy fence and under some trees. All of the lawns in our subdivision are also setup for irrigation with reclaimed water. In these shady areas I have put down fresh sod that looked good when planted but totally died off and did not come back the following spring. I have also tried tilling the sandy soil down here with compost and have tried seed but I have not really been successful. My next door neighbor had problems with his yard and he just had his lawn re-sodded with zoysia grass. At this point I'm wondering if there is a permanent solution to growing centipede grass in these shady areas and if not then what are my options? I thought about trying to blend some other grass with the centipede grass but I have no clue as to what other variety to use that would also have a similar color and texture. Note that this is just the start of my questions as I have many other issues other than shady areas. Any help will be appreciated.

 

[Mightyquinn]

Welcome to TLF!!!

You have pretty much answered your own questions. With all that shade it's going to be hard to get any grass to grow in those areas. The Zoysia "may" do a little better than the Centipede you have but I doubt it. Depending on the grass type, it's going to need at least 5 hours of sun a day to grow and even then it might be thin at best. Your best bet is to turn those areas into flower/shrub beds. Sorry I couldn't give you better news for your first post but maybe someone else will come by and think of something I didn't.

Glad you are here and feel free to ask as many questions as you might have.

 

[gatormac2112]

I think St Augustine grass is your best bet for shade, but even so, MQ is right it will still need 4-5 hours of sun.

 

[Moondoggy]

Is there any other variety of grass like a rye, fescue or some other variety that I might be able to use in these areas that would have the color and blade texture of centipede? The areas in question are either quite long or quite long and wide to simply turn into flower/shrub beds without making the rest of the yard look funny. Also in regard to St Augustine is there only one variety of this grass? Our son lives in the Jacksonville, FL area and his St Augustine grass is unusually thick and wide bladed and I'm not sure that it would blend well with the centipede I have on elsewhere.

Funny thing is that I used to live in central Illinois and growing grass up there is so much easier as you could easily blend different varieties of grasses and there were always grasses that you could use in shade. Down here were I expected growing grass would be easier, it's really much harder.

 

[Mightyquinn]

It's going to be hard to find anything that closely matches centipede in looks as it's a very unique grass in it's own right. Any grass that's adapted to grow in the heat is going to require a fair bit of sunlight to grow. Up North, the grasses are more adapted to cooler weather so there will be some cultivars that may do well with little sunlight. I think it's a give and take between Cool and Warm Season grasses when all things are considered.

You could plant some Cool Season grass but it wouldn't match what you have. Do you have any pictures? We love pictures around here and you could get some ideas from the members here on how to proceed.

 

[gatormac2112]

Yeah, pictures of the area in question and info on how much shade/sunlight it gets would be helpful. Does it get any sun or is it 100% shade 100% of the time?

There are Zoysia varieties like Zorro and Diamond that if cut below an inch can do well with 4-5 hours of sun, thats the reason I have Zorro is due to the trees that shade the lawn for part of the day. However, these are tall trees with some light bleed through. If you have short, dense trees covering the area you may find it hard to fill in with anything.

 

[Movingshrub]

Warm season grasses need sunlight, and usually, lots of it.

Your options are either make a flower/ornamental bed, remove/thin trees if that's what's causing the shade, or if it's due to the house, switch to a cool season grass that will maybe handle the low light, zoysia might handle it, or live with it.

 

[Killmeh]

I am having the same situation, there is a side of my house that gets just about 100% shade due to how the sun moves in correlation to the sun, is there any hope for any type of grass there? currently it is just some weeds and moss (due to never drying out because 0 sunlight)


Here is an picture of it at 1:17pm today.

 

[Tellycoleman]

There are several creative ways that you can arrange a mulch or rock bed. Like people have said pictures can help.
It's going to be challenging growing cool season grass in the panhandle. Depending on height of cut you will have to use fungicide a lot.
Your may have to make a choice. Trees or grass. Private fence and no grass or rod iron fence/ open fence better grass.
@Killmeh you can do a nice rock bed around your house or even some bushes or low sun flowers. You can do a lot. The area around your fence should be ok.

 

[Killmeh]

I was actually thinking about planting some chamellias far enough off the house to where I can trim the back.

the fence and up towards the AC unit actually gets sunlight early enough in the morning to where grass is growing there...not thick but its grass. the problem areas are from the fence line and back since that seems to be the cutoff area of where the sun can hit it in the morning before it gets stopped by the roof.

 

[Spammage]

Your profile says you have both bermuda and St Augustine. St Augustine should be able to survive in the shaded area in your pic as it should get some direct sun from say June to around Sept 1st. I have a similar area behind my house and have been successful in keeping some different grasses that aren't as shade tolerant as St Augustine.

If you are wanting to get rid of St Augustine, then you may want to go with beds including hostas, hydrangeas, ajuga, liriope, etc.