One thing is for sure—many grasses grow well in the sunny-but-often-wet Florida climate. It’s fairly easy to grow many different types of flowers in Florida, too. The result being outdoor landscaping in Florida that is colorful and lush — and amazingly beautiful — throughout many months of the year.
Yet, it’s not all “sunshine and roses” (pun-intended) for the state when it comes to landscaping Florida grasses and flowers.
Specifically, because many of these Florida grasses are so hardy, they can often threaten to literally overrun Florida flower beds if left unchecked. Therefore, consistent grass and flower bed care and maintenance in Florida can often be necessary for the preservation of the grass and beds’ individual beauty and the overall landscape aesthetic.
Common Types of Grass in Florida
So, what are the most common grass types in Florida?
- St. Augustine Grass (stenotaphrum secundatum)
- Bermuda Grass (cynodon dactylon)
- Bahiagrass (paspalum notatum)
- Centipede Grass (eremochloa ophiuroides)
- Buffalo Grass (bouteloua dactyloides)
- Zoysia Grass (zoysia)
Challenges Florida Grass Types Present to Flower Beds
A common characteristic of all of these Florida common grass types is that they thrive in sunny, semi-wet (either natural or irrigated), climates.
Although, each of these grasses fits somewhere into this spectrum of “needs” in varying degrees.
Thus, to ensure your Florida grass is getting the amount of sun, water, cutting and care it needs the most for its best performance, care must be given. Otherwise, the result can be not pretty. Specifically, the grass could not grow and/or die OR grow out of control, resulting in an unkempt lawn appearance.
Uncontrolled Florida grass growth can also strangle the growth of other plants and especially, flowers and their flower beds.
Edging Florida Grasses
Part of this Florida grass care and maintenance, aside from proper irrigation, is trimming the grass as it grows.
This includes mowing the grass on a regular basis. It also includes edging Florida grass if it’s located near walks, drives, houses, and especially, flower beds.
If you do not edge Florida grasses that grow adjacent to other landscape elements and your hardscape, it will definitely not look good. However, dropping the ball on this important grass care can also destroy Flower beds and the flowers themselves.
Landscape Edging that Works Well with Florida Grasses
One reason many in Florida dread mowing and edging is because it can be difficult with these types of grasses to maintain a clean edge between the lawn and other elements. Sometimes it can even feel — especially during or after rainy periods when grass grows like crazy but maintenance can be tough to get done — like you’re always starting from “ground zero.” This is especially true when it comes to edging Florida grass to keep it off walks and out of beds.
Of course, just throwing in the towel isn’t the answer. But what is?
One of the best options to help protect flower beds in Florida from grass — keeping grass out of the beds — is the implementation of landscape edging.
Landscape edging helps to maintain a clean lawn edge AND prevent grass from invading flower beds if installed properly.
The biggest key is installing landscape edging deep enough so that it will block the growth of grass roots into the bed zone. As long as that’s done, maintaining a clean lawn edge is much easier over time.
Two such products that answer this call for edging that works well with Florida grasses and their deeper grass root systems are Edge Right and Grass Barrier.
Edge Right is a COR-Ten steel product and Grass Barrier is made of 100% recycled HDPE plastic. Both products are simple to install and extremely durable. Learn more about each by accessing the links below.