To most people, the dream lawn is one that has a deep, dark green color from early spring until late fall and does not need to be mowed.

The University of Nebraska has come close to realizing that goal with the development of Bella Bluegrass. Bella was developed by researchers at UNL in the mid 1990‟s.

The one draw back to Bella was the fact that it did not produce seed. This trait kept this remarkable grass off the market

In the late 90‟s UNL brought a sample of Bella to Todd Valley Farms at Mead to explore the potential of vegetative propagation, similar to what the farm was doing with vegetative buffalograss.

Successful vegetative propagation of bluegrass on a commercial basis had never been accomplished before and presented a tremendous challenge.

After a series of setbacks over several years, things began to change in 2004. New and adapted equipment started to show promise and growing techniques were modified. It was becoming clear that Bella could be produced on a large scale as sod.

In 2006, Todd Valley Farms purchased world wide rights to Bella and started to contract with turfgrass sod farms in the United States and Canada to produce Bella as sod.

Today, 11 farms have fields of Bella sod in production with more on a waiting list to plant as soon as planting stock becomes available.

In addition, farms in Australia and Hawaii will be established in the next few months with introduction to Europe planned in 2010.

Todd Valley Farms is also producing light weight accelerated growth Bella plugs that can be shipped via UPS throughout the country 12 months a year.

Bella characteristics:

• Very short growing height of 3-4 inches reduces mowing by 80%
• Extreme dark-green color
• Deep root system of 30-36 inches reduces watering frequency
• Shade tolerant Very disease resistant Heat and cold tolerant; growing area from Canada and Georgia
• Very long growing season
• Great for green roofs and hard to mow areas

Currently all of Todd Valley Farms Bella production is being used to plant other sod fields around North America. A limited supply of sod for local installation will be available in 2010. Bella plugs are available now.