Have any of you had any experience using Turffalo in your lawns? I am thinking about trying it in my front yard but was wondering if its as good as they say it is. Do the plugs fill in as fast as they say? Is it as drought tolerant after it is established? etc... Just wanted to get some thoughts...Thanks!

Where do you live?

Midland..I guess that would help to know where i'm located

I have on order 2 flats of turffalo shadow turf. it's a desperate last ditch effort/experiment in turf under a 40 year old live oak. I did a lot of research on turffalo and reviews were all good.

Stuff is expensive but supposed to be good. Have no experience with it though. What is your yard like?

It's a pretty typical front yard..I have a big fruitless Mulberry (really hate mulberry trees!!) where i will have to do a combination of the Shadow Turf and Turffalo. The previous owner of the house just let the yard go so we will be starting from scratch, there is nothing established but weeds right now.
We do have an irrigation system that is already installed so that will help. As the poster above mentioned it is expensive so thats why wondering if anyone has had any success with it.

[This message has been edited by TxAG-010 (edited 3/23/2014 8:54p).]

Turfalo grows in shade? Buffalo grass I'm familiar with takes full sun in hard ground with little or no competition, especially from Bermudagrass.

What do your neighbors have? Whatever it is will invade your turffalo. If you have separation, it will work. Remember, buffalograss is NOT shade tollerant.

B1

As best I can tell shadowturf isn't really buffalo grass. It seems like it is a type of zoysia that is very similar is texture and appearance to their normal turfallo. Not sure if it is a hybrid of species or varieties or what. They clam it can handle 80% shade but I find that hard to believe.

OP,
If you are starting from scratch I would recommend going with the most drought tolerant zoysia I could buy. Or go with the most shade tolerant zoysia depending on your priorities (less water or grows in shade). Don't do St A in midland. I would hate to roll the dice on something that I couldn't find much of a track record with. Make sure your soil is in good shape though.

Thanks for the input. I have been looking into Zoysia, like you said i'm hesitant to go spend money on something that i'm not 100% sure will work. as far as the Shadow Turf from what I've read I think it's a hybrid strain of buffalo grass.

I looked into it pretty heavily for my last house and I couldn't find much info about it. Honestly it bothered me that they wouldn't say what kind of grass it is.

One thing to remember about buffalo grass is it doesn't actively outgrow the weeds like St A and Bermuda do. Buffalo competes with weeds by outlasting it during extreme drought and heat. It will survive when everything else dies. I think with the turfalo they have bred it to stay green longer, but you will probably have to have a very robust herbicide program and plant it very thick to get it and keep it weed free. Especially if you have a lot of weed seed already established. So if you fertilize and water a grass not designed to be watered that doesn't grow fast you could be fighting a losing battle. The turfalo is supposed to have a lot of those characteristics bred out and is supposed to respond better more like a lawn grass.

St A will shade out weeds and Bermuda will compete by being cut shorter and spreading faster. Zoysia grows slowly but will get very thick and choke out the weeds over time.

You can do a lot to domestic and breed out unwanted characteristics from parent plants, but that is basically changing the species entirely. Not saying it couldn't work but it throws a lot of flags for me. The pictures on the site look great though.

You could also do Bermuda with St A under the trees is you want a cheaper option. If I had the cash I would do zoysia though.

Any updates on the turffalo? I'm researching it now as well.

County extension agents are usually very knowledgeable about this sort of thing.

I planted my shadow turf as discussed above. it's doing quite well and gets only an inch of water a week after 2 months. it's a slow spreader but the website told me that. the regular turfalo that isn't designed for shad is supposed to spread faster

it's also a ***** to plant though! get a foot push bulb auger.

What spacing did you use? How much sun does it get? About how much does it spread over a few months?

I spaced closer than the recommended 12 inches. it's gets maybe 4 hours if spotted sunlight - My live oaks are huge. they are filling in, but the breeder said that shadow turf takes a growing season to fill in

Bottlerocket said:

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I spaced closer than the recommended 12 inches. it's gets maybe 4 hours if spotted sunlight - My live oaks are huge. they are filling in, but the breeder said that shadow turf takes a growing season to fill in

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Any update on your shade turf? Thanks!

Also in heavy shade if it won't get much foot traffic, consider mondograss or liriope. From a distance, it can look like turfgrass, and it will thrive in shade.