I need to overseed my lawn, and I have a dilemma.
I have what looks to me to be two kinds of grass. One expert said it is just one kind of grass–rye–and where it looks like another kind, it’s thicker.
Another expert said no, it’s a different kind, but he’s not sure what kind.
The kind I want to match is: Fine, thick, maybe a little thatchy. During dry spells it turns a sort of dusty green, but not yellow. It doesn’t get very high, only needed mowing once all last summer. It is growing on one edge of my yard and under one tree (maple tree). I have had a lot of trouble getting grass to grow under trees, and this one grows right up to the trunk. In the winter it turned brown, and was very slow to green up, but in the fall it stays green longer.
This is the kind of grass I’d like more of.
The other grass is pretty typical grass, not so fine, generally greener, but sparser. It needed mowing a lot more often and seemed to need more water. This last is important, because where I live–Denver–there’s not a lot of rain, at least this summer there wasn’t. Water is money. It also developed quite a few brown patches, which then became bare patches.
I would like to seed these bare patches with whatever the other kind of grass is, if I can find out.
I also need a cold-resistant grass because we had almost three months when the temp went below freezing every single night, and several stretches where it didn’t get above freezing during the day. Elevation approximately 5400 ft.
I should note that my experts are lawn care people, and while they seem to know what they’re doing when dealing with the sprinkler system, they are obviously not on the same page when it comes to the grass.
I have looked at pictures of grass on the Internet, but none of those pictures give me enough information.