This time of year, folks often wonder about what kind of grass to plant for our Wyoming lawns. What you expect from a lawn and what you get from a lawn can be very different. Before launching into a full-scale low- or lower-maintenance lawn, consider what you want - a well manicured lawn or one that is more functional for Wyoming and lower maintenance.
Alternatively, you could have a combination with a well-kept small formal lawn and the out laying grass area could be in a low- maintenance type grass. Probably most important is keeping the soil in place, particularly on steep slopes and with high wind exposure. A lawn that is uniform, relatively free of weeds and aesthetically pleasing is usually desired.
Kentucky bluegrass, the standard in northern climates, is on the high end of the maintenance spectrum. If you consider mowing, fertilizing and watering chores not relaxing, you should probably consider a lower-maintenance grass. Another driving force for lower-maintenance lawns is the need for water conservation. There are bluegrass varieties with lower water needs and with good drought tolerance. Another way to save water would be to restrict bluegrass to the area immediately around the house.
The fine fescues varieties - sheep, chewing, hard and red - are good substitutes for bluegrass, providing comparable turf quality with half the watering and mowing needs. Fine fescues, particularly red fescue, are more shade tolerant than bluegrass. One disadvantage is that they do not fill in bare spots in a lawn nearly as well as bluegrass. Generally these are several varieties mixed together as a blend to use in a lawn. On the other hand, this lack of spreading means they are less likely to invade flowerbeds.
Turf-type tall fescue or Perennial rye grass varieties are generally coarser leaved than the fine fescues, but they have similarly low water needs and are capable of holding up to lots of traffic. If part of a lawn receives heavy traffic, this may be the grass. These are generally mixed together along with some Kentucky bluegrass for sports fields they also do not spread.
Native Wyoming grasses are on the other end of the spectrum. The wheatgrasses - thickspike, streambank and western - are all sod-forming, provide excellent soil protection and can survive on their own. Streambank wheatgrass is not as tall a native grass and is probably the most drought tolerant native cool season grass we have in Wyoming, this one should work very well in those outlaying areas which you do not want to provide the least maintenance too and still have a grassy area.
For best results, cool-season grasses, including fescue, bluegrass, and wheatgrass, should be planted in the early spring or late fall. Make sure the seed bed is firm and not soft, and I have found using a little straw, compost, or potting soil to the surface area after planting will keep the ground from drying out too fast.
Two warm-season grasses, buffalo and blue grama, do well in many lower altitude areas (less than 6,500 feet) of Wyoming featuring hot, dry summers. These fine-bladed grasses are very drought tolerant, but they green up in late spring or early summer, and they go dormant after the first hard frost. Warm-season grasses should generally be planted in early summer about the time you set tomatoes out. These grasses can be a little slow to get established taking more than one year sometimes to get well established. However once these are established there is very little maintenance involved, especially watering.
