Centipede Grass

Pros
Centipede grass takes a little longer to establish than Bermuda but is worth the extra time as it produces a dense, attractive, weed free turf.

It is a slow-growing, creeping grass and has short stems growing upward. A warm season grass, Centipede grass forms a thick sod and has a uniform growing pattern. It is medium to light green colored. Centipedegrass is probably the lowest maintenance of the warm season grasses, needing less watering and mowing than Bermuda or St Augustine.

Often called the lazy man's lawn, a centipede grass lawn needs only a single fertilizing treatment in the spring.

Cons
Centipede will go into dormancy during winter months (turn brown) and due to its slow growing nature it takes longer to green up in the spring. It does not hold up well to a lot of traffic.

Centipedegrass is not like other lawn grasses in many ways. One of those differences is that it needs acidic soil to do well. Centipede grass thrives in acidic soil at a pH of about 5.5. On basic soils, centipedegrass becomes iron deficient and turns light yellow or pale green. Even if the soil contains an adequate amount of iron, the plants are unable to use it. One possible solution is to add sulfer to the soil to alter the balance.

In the Midlands, this is typically not a problem but can be an issue for coastal areas where shells in the soil create a more alkaline balance.

Centipede grass can be killed by extreme temperature cycles in the spring when the warm weather triggers it to begin growing again. A hard freeze after growing has begun will kill the stolons.