Mistake Seed Making Lawns Beautiful

Back during the ice storm clean-up, News On 6 reporter Emory Bryan and photojournalist Ty Lewis noticed three beautifully green lawns shining from beneath the broken limbs and fallen branches. They were curious about the grass, and so was The News On 6's Rick Wells.

He found the source of the beautiful lawns and also what could be the perfect neighbor.

The side-by-side lawns in the midtown Tulsa neighborhood look terrific, of course so do many others with all the recent rain, but those lawns were grown from a different seed, one not normally available in the area.

"It's perfect, maybe not for 100 degree weather so we'll have to see how that works," said Good Grass Man Steve Manning.

A small shipment of the seed was dropped off in Tulsa by mistake. Steve Manning bought three bags and seeded his and his neighbors' lawns with it, no one is sure it will survive. So, it is still an experiment in progress, the next three months will tell the tale.

Steve Manning is a transplant from the Pacific Northwest. He's a huge fan of fescue grass because it's green. Yes generally it's green year round.

"Fescue's enemy is generally really harsh cold or really extreme hot," said Manning.

The stuff survived the ice storm, but has yet to live through one of our summers. That's why it's still an experiment.

A company called seed research of Oregon developed it for high traffic areas and for its disease and insect resistance. It also spreads kind of like Bermuda; each little plant sends out small sister plants.

"The next year each of those sister plants clusters again," said Manning.

The lawns look gorgeous and uniformly maintained.

So far, there's been no effort to have anymore of the seed shipped here intentionally, he wants to see how it does in the heat of the summer. We'll check back later and let you know.