Question
Hi there.  I am a garden designer in England used to very different lawn options than what I have seen recently in Florida.  Please could you tell me what it is, as it looks so much greener and neater than the usual grass.  It seems to be used by all the hotels and around tourist areas particulary, maybe its drought tolerant?? If you understand what I am on about, would you please let me know, also would it grow in the south of England (wet, frost, cold etc etc - in winter) thanks

Answer
That soft, moist London Fog can't be imported here, but it  hasn't stopped Americans from bending over backwards to emulate the lush green Lawns of Merrye Olde Englande.  Your comment about Florida Grass is going to make many people here VERY happy.

American Lawns owe EVERYTHING to our English heritage.  The problem is that most of the U.S. has a climate totally different from yours.  In Nevada and parts of the Southeast, they solve it by 'growing' ARTIFICIAL GRASS, just so they can keep that lush-Lawn look in place. EVEN THOUGH THEY CAN'T ACTUALLY GROW IT!

In Florida, the Grass there is as close as they can get to the beautiful English Grass that thrives in your temperate cool, wet summers and mild, wet winters.   We have NOTHING like that here anywhere.

Right now, for instance, in London, it's 10:30 pm and it's 59 degrees F and overcast with 94 percent humidity; tomorrow, it's going to rain, with a high of 62 degrees F (17 degrees C).  In San Francisco, where weather is CLOSE to London's, it's 59 degrees F.  But it's a sunny 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and the humidity is only 66 percent; tomorrow's high will be 70 degrees F (21 degrees C), but it's going to be very sunny all week.

Compare that to the suburbs of New York City, where I live.  Hardly tropical. Right now it's 70 degrees F (24 degrees C), 45 percent humidity, and totally sunny; tomorrow it's going up to 81 degrees F, and we'll have thunderstorms galore.  In Palm Beach, Florida, it's 89 degrees F at 5 o'clock in the evening, 58 percent humidity, and blazing sunny; tomorrow it's going up to 88 degrees F with thunderstorms.  So you see the good people of Florida are swimming upstream when it comes to growing English-looking Grass.

More than half your English calendar days are overcast, according to the CIA Factbook.  Your winters are mild, but they're outright balmy in Palm Beach.

Grass in Florida is usually 'warm season' Grass.  In the hilly northern areas, which is a little cooler, 'warm season' Grass can't survive the winter temperatures.  But 'cool season' Grass is not built for searing temperatures and humidity of South Florida and the Gulf.  As a tourist, you probably were gazing at warm season Lawns in Orlando or further south, Palm Beach or the Gulf.  So we'll focus on that.

Warm Season Grasses in Florida:

St Augustine Grass, Bermudagrass (Cynodon species, used on Golf Courses and Lawns, but invasive enough to be classified as a noxious weed in some regions), Carpetgrass (Axonopus affinis and Axonopus compressus), Centipedegrass (Eremochloa ophiuroides), Zoysia ('Meyer' introduced in the 1950s, 'Emerald' in the 1960s, both hailed for being maintenance-free and velvety texture), Seashore Paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum, a recent breakthrough in salt-tolerant Grasses), and Bahiagrass (most famous for its drought tolerance).

St. Augustine Grass winterkills when temperatures reach 16 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-9 to -7 degrees Celsius).  This is the most popular Grass in Florida.  'Seville', 'Delmar', and 'Palmetto' are more recently introduced dwarf St. Augustine Grasses.

The most cold tolerant of these is Bermudagrass.  Zoysia will take the cold, but it turns Brown when temps reach 60 degrees and stays Brown all winter, until spring temps are in the 70s.  Oops -- in metric degrees, that's 15.5 degrees and 21 degrees Centigrade.

The warm season Grasses look spectacular this time of year.  This is weather they THRIVE in.  Your pleasant British air won't bring out the fluorescent Greens of Bermudagrass and St Augustine blades.  They like to BAKE in the hot sun.  They like temperatures you can fry an Egg in.

But remember, this is all done in homage to those English settlements, the English gardens, the English speaking colonists who brought their domestic habits home with them to New England.  And stretched South and West and North from there.

Any questions, I'm happy to direct you to places you can buy these seeds and plugs for your own use.  I think however that your English Lawns are already the Gold Standard of the world.  No use improving on perfection.

Thanks for writing.