4 Types of Grass in Massachusetts and How to Tell Which You Have

Massachusetts soil has a chemistry problem before you ever pick a grass. UMass Extension's liming fact sheet lays it out: "The major reason that soils are acid in the humid northeast is that leaching of the basic cations of calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium leaves the exchange sites on the clay and humus particles open." Forty-five to fifty-five inches of rain a year does that. So the honest question for a Massachusetts lawn is not just which grass looks best, but which grass tolerates what the soil already is, and how much lime and fertilizer you are willing to keep buying to change it. That question is why fine fescue fits the state's acidic, low-input conditions so well, and why the sandy Cape and Islands play by different rules than the Pioneer Valley or the Berkshires. Here is the four-grass lineup UMass works with, how to tell them apart, and the dates UMass publishes for seeding, pre-emergent, and feeding.

The types of grass that grow in Massachusetts

Kentucky Bluegrass

Kentucky bluegrass is the backbone of the UMass "central New England" lawn recipe: 65 to 75 percent of a sunny, medium-to-high maintenance mix. UMass Extension credits it with "high tolerance for cold and wear, and moderate for heat and drought," which is the right resume for a state where January runs from the low 20s in the Berkshires to around 30 degrees on the coast. Its rhizomes knit a dense sod that fills in its own bare spots over time, which is the trait most people are buying when they buy a bluegrass lawn. The bill comes in inputs. UMass says it "requires a higher amount of N fertilizer (2-4 lb. N/1000 sq.ft. per growing season)," it "may produce a significant amount of thatch," and it "becomes semi-dormant during extended hot and dry conditions." It is also, in UMass's words, "among the slowest to establish relative to comparable cool season grasses," which is why the mix carries ryegrass for quick cover. On acid soil, use a soil test to decide whether lime is needed to hold the 5.5 to 7.0 pH range UMass calls the most satisfactory for most species.

Fine Fescue

Fine fescue is the Massachusetts low-input story, and UMass Extension says so plainly: the creeping red, Chewings, and hard fescues are "ideal for low maintenance situations" and "very tolerant of low pH and fertility, and of drought and shade." Those are several of the pressures acid New England soil creates. UMass's liming sheet notes fine fescues tolerate a pH of 5.1 to 5.5, and their nitrogen budget is the lowest of the group at 0 to 2 pounds per 1,000 square feet a year. The low-maintenance sun mix is 65 percent fine fescue, and the well-drained shade mix is 80 to 90 percent, with creeping red fescue "the most shade tolerant of these" under trees. The trade-offs are real: UMass warns fine fescues "do not perform well under hot, humid conditions and with high levels of fertility," and they do not hold up under heavy traffic. Treat a fine-fescue lawn as the low-maintenance lawn UMass describes: light feeding, higher mowing, and patience through humid stretches, and it will hold ground where the higher-input grasses struggle.

Perennial Ryegrass

Perennial ryegrass shows up in many of the UMass-recommended Massachusetts mixes for one reason: speed. UMass Extension notes it "germinates rapidly and is quick to establish," so it gives you something green while bluegrass takes its time. UMass keeps it to 10 to 20 percent of a home-lawn mix, and its trait summary tells you where its strength and its limits lie: it is "wear and heat tolerant but will not withstand shade and drought well." The catch in this state is winter. UMass flags that perennial ryegrass "is susceptible to ice cover injury," which matters in the Berkshires and Worcester hills where crusted snow can sit on a lawn for weeks. Its nitrogen appetite matches bluegrass at 2 to 4 pounds a year. Read the seed tag before buying: a cheap bag that is mostly ryegrass gives you a quick lawn that may thin after a hard winter.

Tall Fescue

Tall fescue is the coastal specialist. UMass Extension's best-management guide calls it "more readily adaptable to certain areas of New England, particularly the southern coastal areas," which in practice means the South Shore, Cape Cod, and the Islands, where winters are milder and the sand dries fast. UMass credits the newer turf-type varieties as "heat and drought tolerant" with the ability to "withstand moderate shade," which is a useful combination on fast-draining sand and around the scrub oaks and pitch pines of the Cape. Two cautions from the same guide: it is "slow to establish and has only a fair recovery potential," and it is "particularly susceptible to brown patch and Pythium diseases" in humid summers. It is a bunchgrass, so it tends to become "clumpy in heavily trafficked areas" and bare spots need overseeding rather than filling themselves. Seed it heavy at 7 to 9 pounds per 1,000 square feet and feed it 2 to 4 pounds of nitrogen a year.

Two more names come up in Massachusetts seed conversations and neither belongs in a lawn bag by default. Creeping bentgrass is the putting-green grass of the state's golf courses, and UMass Extension says it "is seldom an appropriate grass for a lawn"; when it shows up in a home lawn it is usually an invader that forms puffy, lighter patches. Rough bluegrass (Poa trivialis) is the exception UMass keeps for wet shade, in a 70 percent 'Sabre' rough bluegrass and 30 percent shade-tolerant Kentucky bluegrass mix, so use it only where the ground stays damp and shaded.