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Planting Centipedegrass Seed
Organic Moments is a presentation
of Alabama Master Gardeners and the
Alabama Cooperative Extension System.
We just cleared this land for parking and
today we are hoping to seed it with centipede grass.
The reason we are using centipede is that
it is well adapted for Alabama,
it likes acid soil, it will grow well
even if it doesn't have full sun
and by definition these areas are not going
to get full sun because of the woods cozy
right up to them. It is low maintenance,
it takes very little mowng and very little fertilizer
and so forth once its growing
The difficulty with centipede is its not all that durable,
but, becasue we are planning to use these parking
areas intermitenly, we don't think that is a big problem.
I'm pacing off the area we are going to be seeding
with centipede grass, and it works out to be
about 16,000 square feet.
If I want to seed at one half pound per 1,000 square feet,
that means I'll need to use about 8 pounds of seed.
This is a 25 pound bag of centipede seed,
so what I have done is mark it at thirds to indicate
what is about a third of it or about 8 pounds.
So, what I have done is pour about 8 pounds
into my bucket and I have added to that about
50 pounds of sand. I probably should have used
more than 50 pounds, but that is all I had
on hand, so that is what I used. Now I want to
make sure I stir this seed in real well with
the sand. So when I spread the seed,
I'm going to be spreading a lot of sand and
a very small amount of centipede seed.
But because the seeds are so small, there will be
plenty of seed to germinate.
Now, my son-in-law Eli and I are filling our hand held spreader with
this sand/seed mixture. To ensure even coverage,
I'm sowing twice at a 90 degree angle.
Now that the seed is down, I'm asking my
daughter Adrian to drive on it with our car
to make sure the seed gets good contact
with the soil. She's carefully going back and forth
to make sure the tires of the car cover every
surface of the soil.
Eli and my wife Amada are covering with
wheat straw all the area that we seeded
and rolled. The wheat straw helps keep erosion
under control and it also helps our bare soil
retain moisture while the
centipede grass is germinating.
Within a season, the critters in our soil
will have incorporated the wheat straw fully into
the soil. There won't be any sign of it left.
We are using about one square bale of straw for
every 2,000 square feet. Now comes the watering.
Centipede grass is drought tolerant once it
is established. But while we are waiting for
the seeds to germinate and thrive,
they need a steady dependable water supply.
We'll water our newly seeded centipede about
every other day until we see green shoots, and
then at least once per week until it is well established.
We'll need to be patient with our new
centipede grass. We are planting this at the
end of May, which is a good time to seed centipede.
By the end of this summer, the grass will be
healthy, but it still looks spotty.
With our poor soil, it'll probably be to the end
of next summer before we have rich full coverage here,
But after then, we'll have an attractive lawn
that will be easy for us to care for
for years to come.
Helpers: Adrian Lee Olson, Elion Olson, Amanda Borden
To find out more, check out www.aces.edu
To become a Master Gardener, check out www.aces.edu/mg
Announcer: Adrian Lee Olson
Music: Bama Sunshine by Elion Olson, www.elionolson.com