Traffic decides the grass
Selection-1 Bermuda recovers from footfall; Korean and Mexican grass do not. Put fine grasses where people look, not where people walk.
5 species
Lawn Grasses and Groundcovers for India
Selection-1 Bermuda, Korean and Mexican grass, vetiver, wedelia and portulaca — water demand, mowing load, slope protection and where each one genuinely belongs.
Lawn is the most expensive square metre in any Indian landscape once you count water, mowing and edging over ten years. Groundcovers and vetiver do much of the same visual and functional work at a fraction of that running cost, which is why the split between them is the most consequential decision on a campus plan.
The grass comparisons below are written for specification: water demand in a real Indian summer, mowing frequency, wear tolerance and how each performs on a slope.
Selection
What actually decides the choice
Slope over 1:2 is not lawn
Steep embankments need vetiver or deep-rooted covers, not turf. Mowing a steep slope is unsafe and the turf will slip in the first monsoon.
Ten-year running cost
A lawn is roughly three to four times the lifetime cost of shrub-and-groundcover massing at the same area. Size the lawn to the use, not the drawing.
Edge detail is the whole job
Grass without a physical edge invades beds within one season and doubles the weeding line-item forever.
Species
Lawns and Groundcovers in the library
Selection-1 Bermuda Grass
Cynodon dactylon "Selection No. 1"
India’s standard hard-wearing lawn grass: fast to establish, cheap to lay, recovers from footfall, and the only sensible choice where people actually walk on the lawn.
- HeightMown at 25–40 mm
- WaterModerate
- MaintenanceHigh — mowing every 7–10 days in growing season
Korean Grass
Zoysia tenuifolia / Zoysia japonica
The fine, soft, deep-green ornamental turf of premium Indian landscapes — beautiful, slow, weed-resistant once closed, and completely unsuited to foot traffic.
- HeightMown at 15–25 mm; often left unmown as a mounded carpet
- WaterModerate
- MaintenanceModerate
Vetiver
Chrysopogon zizanioides
The engineering plant of Indian landscapes: a deep-rooted clumping grass that holds embankments, filters runoff and stops erosion where nothing else will grow.
- Height1–1.5 m clump; trimmed to 300–500 mm in ornamental use
- WaterLow once established
- MaintenanceLow
Wedelia
Sphagneticola trilobata
The fastest green cover in Indian landscaping — a yellow-flowered creeper that blankets slopes and bed edges in months, and needs a hard edge because it will not stop.
- Height150–300 mm
- WaterModerate
- MaintenanceModerate — mostly containment
Portulaca
Portulaca grandiflora
A succulent seasonal groundcover that flowers hardest in the worst heat — the cheap, cheerful colour used on medians, roundabouts and traffic islands through Indian summers.
- Height100–200 mm
- WaterVery low
- MaintenanceLow, but treat as seasonal and expect replacement
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