Calculators / Lawn and turf
What grass suits your climate?
Pick your planting zone and how much rain you get, then your sun and foot traffic. You’ll get the lawn grass that fits where you live, with every other common grass ranked beside it.
Updated · How we check our numbers
Your best fit
Zoysiagrass
Dense, stiff, wear-resistant turf; low mowing, water and nitrogen needs (K-State). Runner-up: Bermudagrass.
- Season
- Warm-seasongreen in summer, brown in winter
- Zones
- 5 to 11
- Plant it as
- sod or plugs
- Mowing height
- about 2 in
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Estimate for planning only, not professional advice. Check the manufacturer’s instructions, your local code and a licensed professional before you buy, build or install. Use at your own risk. Terms.
Every grass, for your yard
zone 7- ZoysiagrassWarm-season · shade fair · drought good · wear excellent · mow about 2 in (Clemson)Best fit
- BermudagrassWarm-season · shade poor · drought excellent · wear excellent · mow 1.5 to 2 in (Missouri)Good fit
- Tall fescueCool-season · shade very good · drought very good · wear good · mow 3 to 4 in (Missouri)Good fit
- Perennial ryegrassCool-season · shade fair · drought poor · wear good · mow 2.5 to 3.5 in (Missouri)Possible
- BuffalograssWarm-season · shade poor · drought excellent · wear fair · mow 2.5 to 4 in, or unmowed (Missouri)Possible
- Kentucky bluegrassCool-season, at the warm edge of its range · shade fair · drought good · wear good · mow 2.5 to 3.5 in (Missouri)Possible
- St. AugustinegrassWarm-season, at the cold edge of its range · shade very good · drought moderate · wear poor · mow 2 to 4 in (Texas A&M)Possible
- CentipedegrassWarm-season, at the cold edge of its range · shade fair · drought not rated · wear poor · mow 1.5 to 2 in (Clemson)Possible
- CarpetgrassWarm-season, at the cold edge of its range · shade fair · drought poor · wear poorPossible
- BahiagrassGrows in zones 8 to 10Not for you
- Fine fescueGrows in zones 3 to 6Not for you
Ratings from K-State, Clemson, Texas A&M, UF and NC State extension publications.
Mostly sod. Only Zoysia japonica has seed sold (Clemson), and Texas A&M lists just two seeded varieties, Zenith and Compadre.
Slow: up to two years to fill in, and slow to recover from injury (K-State). Builds thatch.
Both cool- and warm-season grasses survive here, and neither is perfectly at home. University of Kentucky: “Our summers are often too hot for cool-season grasses like Kentucky bluegrass, and our winters are often too cold for warm-season grasses.” Tall fescue and zoysia are the usual answers.
Hardiness zones say what survives, not what thrives. Your state extension service lists the varieties that do best where you are.
How we work it out
Climate comes first. Your zone rules grasses in or out, using NC State Extension's USDA hardiness zones for each species: where it survives, not where it makes the nicest lawn. So a grass well inside its range ranks above one near the edge, and a warm-season grass in its coldest zone, or a cool-season one in its warmest, drops down the list. Tall fescue is the exception: no extension service publishes a zone range for it, so its 3 to 8 is from Pennington, a seed maker.
Then sun, rain and traffic: each grass is scored with K-State's shade, drought and wear ratings (poor to excellent). Buffalograss only rises in a dry climate, since Texas A&M says it's best where rain is 25 in a year or less. For St. Augustine, centipede, bahia and carpetgrass, which K-State doesn't rate, we use Clemson, Texas A&M and UF's wording. If no source rates a trait, it counts as middling.
Perennial ryegrass and fine fescue are scored lower, since Missouri Extension says neither should be seeded alone; they go into mixes. In zones 6 and 7 both cool- and warm-season grasses survive. That's the transition zone, where, in the University of Kentucky's words, summers are too hot for cool-season grasses and winters too cold for warm-season ones.
Don't know your zone? Look it up by ZIP code. Not sure what's growing now? Identify your grass first.
Where the numbers come from
- NC State TurfFiles: turfgrass species identification
- K-State Research and Extension MF2032: Turfgrass Selection (2017)
- K-State Research and Extension MF2031: Turfgrass Identification (2017)
- University of Missouri Extension MG10: Managing Lawns and Turfgrass
- University of Minnesota Extension: buying turfgrass seed
- Texas A&M AgriLife L-5519: Turfgrass Selection for Texas
- Texas A&M AgriLife EHT-144: St. Augustinegrass Lawn Management
- UF/IFAS ENH1382: Florida Turfgrass Identification (2024)
- Clemson HGIC: lawn grass factsheets
- University of Kentucky AGR-237: grass options in the transition zone
- NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: hardiness zones by species
- Pennington: tall fescue growing zones
Your lawn
Watering it
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