Bluegrass Seed Heads

What Are These Red Grassy Seed Stalks In My Bluegrass

Bluegrass sends out masses of seed heads usually around May and June each year. Bluegrass seed heads have a tough green stalk topped by a red set of the seeds themselves.

Many people who see these masses of seeds suddenly appearing in their lawns believe that they may be a new infestation of weedy grasses. This usually isn't true and the difference between weedy grasses and the Kentucky Bluegrass re-seeding itself is easily spotted.

The obvious and best way to spot Kentucky Bluegrass seeds is by the way they look, the red tipped seed stalks are a dead giveaway. The next best way to determine that the lawn is re-seeding is by looking at the sheer numbers of the seed heads themselves. A lawn which is re-seeding itself will do so in abundance - there will literally be thousands or millions of seed stalks across the entire lawn's surface, whereas if the stalks were of a weedy grass type - the seed heads would be more sporadic in how they are spread over the lawn.

Mulching Bluegrass Seed Heads

Once correctly identified, mulching clippings and the seed heads they contain can often be seen as a good idea to overseed the existing Bluegrass lawn. The main problem with this is that it will most often not work. This is because the Bluegrass seed heads will need to fully ripen and mature before they actually become viable seed.

The full process will often take around 8 weeks for the seed to mature and dry out before they can be used. Leaving a lawn for such a long period of time between lawn mowing would obviously cause the lawn to grow too high and then become scalped and damaged from when lawn mowing resumes, so this is obviously not a good idea.

Other Reasons To Mulch Seed Stalks

While we may not be able to mulch our seeding Bluegrass lawns for the purposes of re-seeding the turf, we can still mulch the clippings into the lawn. This is a great time of the year to recycle the abundance of nutrients which are found in seed stalks, especially Nitrogen. These mowed seed stalks will quickly break down into the soil and release all their nutrient goodness in the process.