Greenville is a hard place to grow grass.
The upstate sits in the transition zone, where cool season and warm season grasses both grow and neither is really comfortable. Almost everything below follows from that.
Which grass do you actually have?
It decides the mowing height, the feeding schedule and which month matters most. Getting it wrong is the most common reason a lawn here looks tired by August.
- Tall fescueCool season. Green through winter, struggles in July and August, thinned by heat rather than neglect. Most older Greenville neighborhoods and anything with real shade. Cut high, feed in fall, overseed every year.
- BermudaWarm season. Brown and dormant November to April, and nothing is wrong with it. Loves full sun, wants cutting short and often, and gets fed hard in summer, the exact opposite of fescue.
- ZoysiaWarm season, denser and slower than bermuda. Takes a little shade, chokes out weeds well once established, needs less feeding. Also dormant in winter.
- Two of them at onceVery common here, usually fescue in the shade and bermuda where the sun hits. The hardest case, because the two want opposite treatment on the same yard.
How a year runs here
Dates move a couple of weeks either way depending on the spring, which is why we work off soil temperature rather than the calendar.
- Feb to Apr
Wake up
Preemergent down before soil hits fifty five degrees, usually the last week of February. Miss that window and you are pulling crabgrass all summer.
- May to Jun
Push
Weekly mowing in earnest. Bermuda gets fed hard as it takes off. Fescue gets a light feed and the deck goes up so it can shade its own roots.
- Jul to Aug
Hold on
Fescue is survived rather than improved. Highest deck setting, clippings returned, deep and infrequent watering, no nitrogen at all. Grub watch.
- Sep to Nov
The big one
Aeration and overseed. If you spend money on the lawn once a year, spend it in September. Then fall feeding, and leaves from about the first week of November.
What we are doing, and when
Written for a fescue lawn, which is what most of our customers have. Bermuda is called out where the two diverge.
| Month | On the lawn | Mowing |
|---|---|---|
| January | Dormant. Cleanups, gutters, bed edging, equipment. No fertilizer on anything. | Every other week |
| February | Soil warming. Preemergent goes down in the last week, before crabgrass germinates. | Every other week |
| March | Broadleaf weeds treated while small. Fescue starts moving. Bermuda still brown, and that is correct. | Weekly from mid month |
| April | Fescue growing hard and gets a light feed. Bermuda greens up and takes its first. | Weekly |
| May | Last spring feed for fescue, then the blades go up. Bermuda is fed heavily and cut shorter. | Weekly |
| June | Heat arrives. Fescue deck at its highest. The watering conversation happens now, not in July. | Weekly |
| July | No nitrogen on fescue. Grub inspection. Bermuda is in its best month and keeps being fed. | Weekly |
| August | Survival. Seed is ordered and aeration is booked, because September fills up fast. | Weekly |
| September | Aeration and overseed. The most important four weeks of the year for a fescue lawn. | Weekly |
| October | New seed establishing. Light frequent watering, and no weed control over young seedlings for about four weeks. | Weekly |
| November | Fall feed, the one that matters most for fescue. Leaf removal begins. Bermuda goes dormant. | Weekly to mid month |
| December | Leaf work finishes. Fescue still green and growing slowly. | Every other week |
If you take one thing from this page: aerate and overseed a fescue lawn every September. It does more than fertilizer, weed control and watering put together, and there is no way to make up for missing it in the spring.
Not sure what you have got?
Send the address and a photo of the grass. We can usually tell fescue from bermuda in the picture, and say what that means for the year ahead.