PlantFiles: Centipede Grass
Eremochloa ophiuroides

Love centipede grass! Abhor St. Augustine - too pest-attracting! All I do to control Jap. Beetle grubs is apply Milky Spore. Fertilizing is cheap & relatively simple with dried molasses - no high-nitrogen fertilizer for centipede. It never grows too tall - just a few inches, and then, is filled with seed heads. It does tend to grow by runners into flower beds, but is relatively easy to remove - unlike Bermuda!

Centipede grass is a very popular lawn grass in the South and does very well in light shade. Do not try to use under heavy shade conditions (St Augustine grass is much more shade tolerant) nor under trees with a shallow root system. Maintenance requirements are quite low, hence the nick name of "the poor man's bent grass". DO NOT over-fertilize; no more that one pound of actual nitrogen per thousand square feet per year is adequate for strong, healthy growth. Major problems include Brown Patch (fungus), sting nematodes, grubs and mole crickets. Docturf.

An extremely drought tolerant grass, good for walking on. It does not need any watering except in extreme drought, unlike those thin - stemmed grasses most landscapers use that go colorless in dry weather. ( I think it is called Bermuda grass) It also is efficient at choking out weeds. The only bad thing about it is that it will try to take over paved surfaces with it's rhizomes that resemble centipedes.