Grass Man Still Looking For Magic

By Rick Wells, News On 6

Tulsa, OK -- Back in June, Rick Wells talked to a midtown man who had re-seeded his and his neighbor's lawns with a special kind of grass. It was a kind of spreading fescue grass, not normally available here.

Good neighbor Steve Manning is preparing his and his neighbor's yards for something new because the grass he planted for all of them last fall, for the most part didn't work.

"Well, it didn't, it was beautiful for 10 months. People would stop and marvel and say, ‘wow, where did you get that?' but July and August is just too tough," said Manning.

Wow, was our reaction in June when we saw it, it looked great. Manning explained what made the fescue grass special, it spread like Bermuda, each plant would put out little sister plants.

"That rhizoming fescue just wasn't strong enough to fight off the Bermuda," said Manning.

He says he knew it was a gamble because the grass he found was not designed for Tulsa's summer heat and in the end the heat won.

"I had to make the decision to go back to ground zero, that's why I cut it short and that's why I'm slitting the surface," said Manning.

Last year's work is not a total loss, there was enough shade to keep the Bermuda in check and the new grass did well. So how did it rate?

"I'll give it an eight or nine in the shade and a one in the sun," said Manning.

But there is a certain joy in a lush green lawn 12 months a year even in Tulsa so our good neighbor Steve marches on, in search of perfection.

Once that prep work is done, there are several hundred pounds of new seed to spread, keep it watered and very soon, it'll be grass.

06/20/2008 - Mistake Seed Making Lawns Beautiful