Choosing the Right Lawn Seed - Warm and Cool Season Grasses
Cool Season
Grow best in temperatures between 15 and 25 degrees celsius and include Ryegrass, Fescues, Bluegrass and Bentgrass. They're at their best during the spring and autumn periods, and are suited for the cooler climates, e.g. Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria, ACT and some areas of New South Wales.
Cool season grasses have poor heat and drought tolerance, but will perform satisfactorily in partial shade. Apart from their higher water use requirement, their main disadvantage is that during high humidity they're more susceptible to leaf diseases.
The ideal mowing height for cool season grasses is 2-3 cm as they're not tolerant of low mowing. Bentgrass is an exception here and will tolerate mowing down to a height of 1.5cm.
Warm Season
Grow best in temperatures between 25 and 32 degrees celsius and include couch grass, kikuyu, and buffalo grass. They have better heat an drought tolerance than cool season grasses and are suited to temperate areas, e.g. New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.
As a group, they're tougher and are more tolerant of low mowing. They are stoloniferous grasses which will spread and thicken the turf. plus they'll colonise surrounding garden beds unless they're kept in check and also have poorer winter colour retention.
To learn more about our grass types and seed varieties view our facts sheets here.