12/17/2014 - By James Bartley

In 2011 when a move to Auburn, Alabama became a reality for my wife and me, our realtor showed us a house that he thought would be perfect for us. It was in a solid neighborhood with a good reputation. When we pulled up to the house I looked at the front lawn and saw neglected hybrid bermuda with lots of easy to control weeds.

Having been in the lawn care business for many years I knew it could turn around with one or two applications.  I chuckled to myself as I wondered how many buyers marked this house off their list due to the weedy front lawn.

We went inside the house and it was exactly what we wanted. My wife said “This is the one. This feels like home”.  We decided to check out the back deck and lawn and when I saw the back lawn, I thought “…not so fast,” summoning my inner Lee Corso. The back lawn was centipedegrass.

As an LCO I would receive the dreaded “my centipede is dead” phone calls every April or May. It was not something I looked forward to due to the fact it was one of the hardest things to explain to the homeowner especially since the lawn looked great at the end of the last growing season.

Was I now willing to have that stuff in my own back yard?

Centipede, often called the lazy man’s grass, is known for its ability to remain well established under little to no maintenance. I have seen decent stands in cemeteries and roadsides where fertilizer applications are rare or nonexistent. Being a relatively slow grower, one could mow centipede at three week intervals without ever receiving a notice from the HOA to cut their grass.

So why all the problems for the homeowners with this grass type? In my experience it comes from the homeowner’s desire to have his cake and eat it too. He likes the minimum effort/ lazy man part of it but wants it to look like a darker green, higher maintenance turf. Centipede has a naturally light green color which is unacceptable to many and to get a darker color, over-fertilization is often a temptation.

Annual nitrogen rates that exceed 2 lbs. of N per 1000 will, over time, cause elevated stolon formation that makes it very vulnerable to cold and drought injury. Add to that high mowing heights and/or infrequent mowing from the homeowner and you have a recipe for disaster.

University studies have shown centipede plots that received high nitrogen and high mowing heights would suffer the most winter survival problems while plots with lower N rates and close mowing had the greatest winter survival rates.  So if you try to achieve a better color with any nitrogen it is advisable to mow close and frequently.

I have been able to keep a quality Centipede turf with 1” weekly mowing, mulching the clippings, and limiting the N to 1.0 to 1.25 lbs./1000/year from mostly slow release sources.

Healthy Centipedegrass

This past spring, many lawns in the centipede belt were hammered by cold temperatures and late freezes. I spent many hours on the phone with LCO’s that were concerned with all the dead and damaged Centipede accounts and with how they were going to explain the conditions to the homeowner. Even after the LCO’s efforts to stay within acceptable fertilizer and weed control recommendations, he, unfortunately, inherited the homeowner’s poor mowing and irrigation habits that pushed the lawn over the edge concerning winter survival.  This leads to early graying for the LCO when homeowners accuse their lawn care company of killing his lawn.

Damaged Centipedegrass

I know one LCO that will not sign up a centipede account. The income is not worth the headache nor the heartache to him.  However, some of the more coastal LCOs of SC, GA, AL., NW FL, and MS have as much as 70% of their clientele with centipede. They must master this species if they are to establish a successful lawn care business in that region.

The good news is that centipede lawns don’t have to be an albatross. One can be successful with the right chemical and fertilizer program and homeowner education concerning proper mowing and irrigation.

The lawn care industry is an industry where the LCO often feels he must give the homeowner a lot of bang for the buck, meaning multiple weed applications with a lot of fertilizer granules and technician activity noticeable to the customer. With centipede customers, the LCO approach should be to charge for the applications done in moderation as well as his time for customer education and frequent consulting. In other words, he should seek profitability for doing the right thing as opposed to doing a lot of things.

It can be done with success but homeowner education must remain a priority. As the recommendations of the LCO prove successful year after year, he can win the trust of the homeowner and hopefully lead them into better mowing and irrigation habits.

Winter Damaged Centipedegrass

The Harrell’s rep can help his lawn care customer by shaping his centipede maintenance philosophy and providing him the products that maximize centipede performance without compromising its health unnecessarily. Provide him with slow release N products that get good coverage while holding in check the annual N. This can be accomplished with both Polyon and other slow release sources. Foliar iron or micro products can help play a role in improved centipede color without approaching the danger zone with excessive N.

In addition, judicious use of pre and post herbicides on centipede can be the difference in success and failure, so an “as necessary” approach is sometimes in order for centipede hammered by cold or drought injury. It may even be prudent to withhold crabgrass pre-emergent apps where severe winter injury is anticipated to allow optimum rooting and recovery potential.

As an LCO I would tell homeowners that less is better on centipede and that a majority of their success will come from their proper mowing and watering practices.

Back to my lawn...

I finally resolved, after signing the contract on the house, that having a centipede lawn would give me the opportunity to maintain and observe this often difficult species and prove to myself it could be maintained successfully.  For the last 3 years I’ve had the opportunity to practice what I preached and I am the beneficiary of an attractive centipede lawn in my back yard. Even after late freeze damage in 2014 I was able, through sound practices, to nurse it back to a quality turf.

As a turf manager, one never stops learning. Testing the various recommendations and observing their results will shape your turf wisdom and improve your ability to help the homeowner manage centipede and other challenging species.