Are you thinking of a specific turf grass? You mention hybrid, but hybrid what?

Where in zone 5 are you?

What are you really looking for in the grass you're considering? The two grasses that use the least water and will live in zone 5 of the Rockies would be buffalo grass and blue grama. In zone 5, they'd have a pretty short green season (maybe mid May to early October or so). Buffalo grass spreads via stolons and blue grama is a bunch grass.

There are some cool season grasses (green about the same times as Kentucky bluegrass) that don't use a lot more than those two (but would probably require a little irrigation during summer to stay green). Some of these are sheep fescue (a native bunch grass), crested wheatgrass (non native, most are bunch grasses, but some newer varieties are weakly rhizomatous), streambank wheatgrass (rhizomatous) and western wheatgrass (rhizomatous).

Most of these look a little different from a traditional Kentucky bluegrass lawn (not as dark green, finer blades, slower growing). They're not really common as lawns, although a number of us on the Rocky Mountain forum have one or more of these grasses.

I've gone with western and streambank wheatgrass in the front and sheep fescue and creeping red fescue (the creeping red fescue isn't as drought tolerant but spreads and the back is shaded, so I might be okay) in the back. I haven't watered yet, although most of my neighbors have been watering for several weeks. My primary goal is to reduce my water use, so I'm willing to have a lawn that is lighter green in exchange for the low water use. I'm hoping to get by watering once or twice a month starting no earlier than mid June.

BP,

I live in Falcon, Colorado, just east of Colorado Springs, around 7200 elevation. They brand of seed my friend used is Hercules.

I want the best of both worlds, green, and small amounts of water. What do you suggest?

Thanks for the info. I googled the Hecules mix and it's got tufted hairgrass, bluegrass, perennial rye, and prairie junegrass. None of them specify the variety.

It's not really a hybrid, but is a mixture of traditional and non traditional lawn grasses.

P rye won't do well here and will become an increasingly smaller portion of your lawn as time goes on. Bluegrass (I assume KBG) needs the most water of the lawn grass choices we have. The other two are low water use and if you don't water much, they'll slowly dominate the lawn.

I don't know that much about either of those grasses, but I think they're even less common lawn choices than the ones I'm using. My personal preference would be for some different choices.

At your elevation, buffalo grass and blue grama will be dormant longer than I think you'd like. So I'd go with cool season grasses.

I'm a fan of native grasses, but I'll give you some info on non natives, also. If I were planting a new lawn, I'd go with western wheatgrass or a mix of western and streambank ehatgrass.

Crested wheatgrass is getting a lot of attention as a turf alternative. It's easy to get started and newer varieties (roadcrest, Ephraim, maybe some others) also spread via rhizomes. In my opinion, it goes dormant too fast and isn't as green as some of the other options. But it is very easy to grow and will live with little or no water.

My personal favorite is western wheatgrass. It develops very deep roots and has a nice blue-green color. Its leaves aren't as fine as some of the other grasses. It's harder to get started than the other grasses. With its deep roots, it takes a lot to get it to go dormant. Once it goes dormant, it takes longer to come out of dormancy.

Streambank wheatgrass goes dormant sooner than western wheatgrass, but snaps out of it faster, also. It has very fine blades. It can handle a longer dormant period than western wheatgrass. If you have sandy soil, thickspike wheatgrass will do better than streambank.

Sheep fescue will live with almost no water. It's a bunch grass and can also suffer from high summer temperatures.

As I said, I'd go with western and either streambank or thickspike wheatgrass, but it depends on what you want.

If you're going with one (or more) of the cool season grasses, you'll want to wait until late summer to plant (if you can water 3x a day) or dormant seed after the soil is too cool to germinate the grass and it will germinate as soon as it's warm enough.

Another option is sod, but the only native grass sod farm I know is Bio Grass.

Like bp, I have streambank and western wheatgrass. I live in Limon and it does great. When it starts going dormant is about the time the monsoons hit so it greens right back up. I haven't watered yet this year, just what Ma Nature provides. In the four years I've had it, I haven't turned the sprinkler system on more than once or twice a year. It isn't perfect, but no lawn is. I'm very happy, so are my feet (very soft), the dog loves it, and the bunnies gorge on it and stay out of my garden.

The request is very common, and someone will have to decide what is the tradeoff and which feature gets dropped.

An important consideration is whether it gets traffic. No traffic gives you more options. If it gets traffic, you'll have to be stuck with a cultivar of KY blue and prepare the h-e-double-hockey-sticks** out of your soil. The "turf" type will decide how you prep your soil as well, so don't amend until you decide.

That said, if no traffic, I'd recommend stopping in Castle Rock the next time you come back from Denver and look around at the medians and public areas, then contact me and tell me which public areas you like with the cross streets and I'll get the mixes for you.

Dan

** Repeating Stanley Cup Cham-peen Red Wing hockey sticks, preferably... ;o)

I appreciate that bpgreen gave me a heads up about buffalo grass greening up later in the spring, as we had put in a section of plugs and I thought they'd all died! Instead nearly all of them came back to life and they are putting out little rhizomes now and spreading.

We're not attached to having a bright green, long season lawn, so the low-to-no-water aspect of the buffalo grass worked for us. And it's nice to walk on, makes a fairly soft turf. It doesn't look like a usual suburban lawn though; I'd bet some HOAs wouldn't like it (we don't have one in our area).

I think buffalo grass isn't recommended for this elevation. My neighbor has Blue Grama, and while it looks good, it doesn't look like a traditional lawn.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tales of a Transplanted Gardener

Does anyone have experience with Medallion Plus in So. Cal.? it is touted as having a deep root system and being drought tolerant. True or BS?

We used 'Reveille', a mix developed by Graff's Turf Farms up in Fort Morgan. It uses about 30% less water than traditional bluegrass and it's BEAUTIFUL. We decided against buffalograss because it's not so good with foot traffic and I needed something that can stand up to croquet, kids, and dogs.
Worth looking into, depending on your needs.