Zoysia grass is one of the best warm season grasses for shady conditions. Bahia grass and centipede grass have moderate shade tolerance, but Bermuda grass doesn't work well without full sun. Cold-season grasses generally tolerate more shade than warm-season types, but they also vary. If only a confined region of your lawn is shaded, for example, the area under a large tree plant blends grass across the lawn to ensure a uniform look.
For example, if you plant a grass mix that contains a shade-friendly fescue and a sun-loving variety of Kentucky bluegrass (for example, be sure to regularly prune overgrown lower branches of nearby trees to allow sunlight to pass into the grass below). The best shade-tolerant grass to choose from includes St. Augustine and Zoysia grass (warm season grass). The types of cold season grass for low light conditions would be ballico, tall fescue and fine fescue.
Instead of planting just one species, you can also choose to mix grass seeds to achieve a balance between sun and shade. The centipede will work best in full sun, but it is still quite shade-tolerant and needs only 6 hours of direct sunlight a day. For cold season areas, the grass growing in the shade would be fine and tall ballico and fescue, as they offer the greatest shade tolerance. They need a minimum of four hours of sunshine to survive.
Warm season grasses that grow in a certain shade include Zoysiagrass and St. Bermuda is one of the most popular varieties. But it also has the highest demand for light. Of all the standard lawns available, Bermuda grass is tailor-made for lawns with few, if any, trees and lots of sunshine.
Requires the most sunlight of all popular lawn versions, so make sure your lawn meets the requirements. Grass that grows mostly in shade requires a little more nitrogen than grass under constant sunlight, although not much more. If you live in the so-called “Transition Zone” between North and South, where both cold-season and warm-season grasses can thrive, choose a cold-season lawn for a shady lawn. Zoysia grass is a tough type of grass known for its superior wear resistance and for growing well in unfavorable conditions.
The lawn is in one of two categories (cold season and warm season), and there are grasses with little light or shade for both. But since there is a lawn for everyone, the centipede deserves to be in the race, we just won't mention that it is commonly referred to as “grass of the poor” of the south, because that's just mean. If the shaded areas of your lawn are not planted with the correct type of grass, you may end up with a lawn that is partly turf and partly bare earth. And to keep the lawn looking thick and lush in low light conditions, overload the practice of adding seeds to an existing lawn in the fall.
Buy shade grass seeds that are a different turf mix or mix; shade-tolerant mixes offset each other if one type fails, another might. You will find that some seeds and seed mixes sold online and in stores are conveniently marked as “shade tolerant”. A good example is the Scotts Turf Builder Grass Seed Dense Shade Mix, which works well under trees with just 3 hours of direct sunlight a day. It is not possible to find grass seeds in full shade because all plants require sunlight for photosynthesis.
The reason for this is simple: the longer the grass blade, the more surface the grass will have to perform photosynthesis and grow with the little sunlight it receives. Grass in shady areas will often be more susceptible to damage and will recover much more slowly than grass grown in full sun. .
