What type of grass seed is best for hot temperatures?

Ed Bath:

Georgia had a question on seeding grasses. Unfortunately, in our area, most of our grasses are running type grasses and therefore they don’t produce very good seed heads and are difficult to grow from seed. In fact, I don’t even really know of a good source for Bermuda or St. Augustine type grasses. In the fall, we can grow a winter rye, which is nice because it stays green through the winter, you can even throw it over the top of your St. Augustine or Bermuda, but it dies out in the heat. So we do carry that kind of grass seed at that time of year, but it doesn’t handle the heat.

What you do need to do, or the best thing to do for grass here, is to plant from a sod type form like this, in either Bermuda, St. Augustine, there’s a few other grasses that… And some of them handle shade better. There’s a Palmetto St. Augustine that handles shade really well. But what you’re looking for when you get the grass is you want a nice, thick base like this, where it’s got some good soil. We get a lot of complaints from people that go pick up some grass on the side of the road, and ultimately they come back saying it didn’t survive or didn’t make it or had a lot of weeds or other issues. You want to make sure that you get a good quality sod.

But this can be planted anytime of year. Yeah, you have to water a little bit more sometimes when it’s really hot or we have extended periods of dryness, but it’s definitely the way to go and it should root in and be ready to go within about a month, it roots in and then can be walked on regularly. So you want to use sod for grass.