14 THE COMPLETE GARDEN 



15th or 20th of September, thus not overlapping the autumn planting 

 season to any extent. As one goes southward, the season again merely 

 shifts along, so that, in the Upper Austral Zone, it opens about Sep- 

 tember 15th and closes about November ist, while in the Lower 

 Austral it is pushed along to October 15th. Here the practice of 

 seeding stops, except for the use of English rye as a green winter 

 carpet, and is superseded by the practice of "sprigging" or planting 

 pieces of Bermuda and St. Augustine grass. This grass planting is 

 commonly done in southern Florida in June, while farther north, and 

 especially in Alabama, it is done through the winter months so as to 

 take advantage of the then abundant rains (See Page 59). 



Grass seed sown too early in the autumn and not artificially watered 

 will generally lie dormant until the fall rains start germination, and, 

 likewise, seed sown too late in the autumn or too early in the spring will 

 lie dormant until the ground warms up sufficiently to start sprouting. 

 The grass seeding season is from the time the ground gets warm 

 enough in the spring until it gets too cold in the autumn to start the 

 germination process, but this season is as a matter of practice divided 

 into two parts by the period in the summer when the ground is too dry 

 to start germination and the weather is so hot as to require constant 

 artificial watering, both to start germination of the seed and to keep 

 the young plants alive. It is also generally considered wiser not to 

 seed so late in the autumn, in the North, that the young grass plants 

 will not be well established before freezing weather. These are the 

 factors which influence the establishment of the lawn seeding season 

 dates diagrammatically shown on the chart (Plate HI). Making lawns 

 in the South is a process of seeding when adaptable mixtures of north- 

 ern lawn seed are used, and a process of planting roots when the native 

 Bermuda and St. Augustine grasses are used. Northern grass is 

 seeded in the period from September to January. Italian rye is seeded 

 from October to January, and native grass roots are planted as shown 

 on the chart in stations 21 and 22. 



