Northern Clone Buffalograss

What Makes It Different

Every plant in one of these lawns is a cutting of the same female plant, and that single fact removes both things people dislike about seeded buffalograss. There are no males, so there are no stalks standing above the canopy and no pollen at all — these are the buffalograsses sold specifically to allergy households. And because the lawn is one genotype instead of hundreds, it’s uniform: one blade width, one shade of green, one growth rate, edge to edge.

Mowing collapses as a result. A seeded stand gets cut every week or two in summer to keep the stalks down. A female clone has nothing to cut but height, so mowing drops to once a month or less — and an owner content with a soft four-inch canopy can go most of a season without starting the mower at all.

These two are also the cold end of the species. Both were bred for northern and transition conditions and their winter survival is rated excellent, which is the real dividing line between this page and the southwestern clones — the same yard that carries Legacy through a winter will kill ‘609’ outright.

Who It’s For

Normal-sized yards, roughly Zones 4 through 7, in the Plains, the Rockies, the Midwest and the dry western transition zone. Specifically: a household with a pollen allergy; a front lawn that has to read as deliberate; a yard with a history of chinch bug damage; and anyone whose real goal was never mowing. Lot size is the limiting factor — this is a route for a yard, not for half an acre.

The Cultivars

What Changes In Care

Mowing, as above — nothing to none. Past that, the establishment year is where a plug lawn really differs.

Buy pre-rooted plugs if you can. Grown on in pots for a few weeks before they ship, they cover in 8 to 12 weeks, while bare plugs sulk and brown for three or four weeks before they even start. Plant on 12-inch centers for a fast fill or 18-inch for economy, feed about a pound of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet monthly through that first summer until the stolons close the gaps, then stop and switch to the type page’s lean program. Pendimethalin is safe on plugs at planting, which is a genuine advantage over seeding. If you lay sod instead, give it four to six weeks to root before any pre-emergent.

One rule belongs only to clones: never patch a thin spot with seed. Seed reintroduces male plants, and you’ll get seedheads in patches through a lawn you bought specifically not to have them. Repairs are plugs.

Before You Buy

• Do the tray math first. A 70-cell tray covers about 70 square feet at 12-inch spacing, or about 155 at 18-inch. A 1,000-square-foot lawn is therefore somewhere between six and fourteen trays — call it $450 to $1,000 in plants — and the tighter spacing buys you a faster fill, not a better lawn.
• Plant with six weeks of frost-free weather left. Plugs set later than that go into winter without a root system, and they’re the classic winterkill case in a grass that’s otherwise very cold-hardy.
• One clone, never a blend. Vegetative buffalograss is planted as a single cultivar. Mixing Legacy and Prestige gives you a patchwork of two textures, which defeats the reason for buying a clone in the first place.
• If shade is the reason you’re here, buy Prestige. The light-shade data belongs to Prestige alone — Legacy has none — and even then it means thin canopy shade. The parent grass still wants six to eight hours of direct sun and nothing on this page changes that.
• Sod is regional; plugs are not. Trays ship nationwide by parcel, but sod depends on a farm near you. If you want sod and there isn’t a grower in your region, plugs are the only route in.