In addition to poor heat and drought tolerance, the cool-season grass also has poor traffic tolerance. If you're planting a turf lawn because you want an area for your kids, pets, or yourself to play, red fescue probably isn't the best choice. This is especially true during hot or dry spells in the summer.
To sum up, red fescue is both versatile and resilient. It's your champion in the pursuit of low input turf. With less pesticide, less need for water, and minimal environmental impact, red fescue is a step towards a more environmentally friendly turf management.
Red fescue grows well in New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the New England states. In places where temperatures are high and there is a great deal of humidity, grass may turn brown and go dormant. Once fall temperatures arrive and more moisture arrives, the grass will rebound.
Cons of Choosing 90-10 Tall Fescue Sod. While it can tolerate partial shade, it won't do well in full shade. Additionally, it's not as tolerant of diseases and insects as some other types of sod, so you'll need to be extra diligent about pest control.
Chewings, creeping red, and hard fescues have fine leaves and are classified as fine fescues. Conversely, turf-type tall fescue has wider leaves and is found in many lawn grass seed blends because of its versatility.
Some fine fescues—Chewings fescue and slender creeping red fescue—can tolerate lower mowing heights better than other fine fescues (Table 1). Regardless, a higher mowing height (i.e., 2.5 to 4 inches) will help reduce common weed invasion (Fig. 3).
Tall fescue is valued for its adaptability to a wide range of climates and its tolerances for cold, heat, drought and shade. In its preferred growing zones, tall fescue provides lawn owners with outstanding options for improving lawn resilience and durability.
Between the cells in fescue grows an endophyte, a fungus living symbiotically inside the grass. The endophyte is what makes the fescue robust against drought and overgrazing, but it's also what makes it toxic.
Zoysia grass creates a thick, soft surface that chokes out weeds and produces stolons that creep along the surface of the soil and expand horizontally.
Tall Fescue is one of the grass types that can compete with Bermuda grass and potentially choke it out in certain conditions. However, it requires proper management and maintenance to suppress Bermuda grass effectively.
Very low maintenance. It does not require much fertilizer and does not need excessive amounts of water. A high mowing cut is recommended. Red fescue has a high tolerance for cold temperatures and shade, moderate tolerance for drought and wear, and low tolerance for heat.
Red Fescue is listed in the Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States.
St. Augustinegrass is the most shade-tolerant of the warm-season grasses, followed by zoysiagrass. Centipedegrass and bahiagrass perform well under light pine-tree shade but are not as shade-tolerant as St. Augustinegrass and zoysiagrass.
Hard fescue — Festuca longifolia
This species is good as a non-mowed turf for slopes, median strips, and nonused areas of parks.
Nitrogen fertilizer should be applied mid to late October to creeping red fescue seed stands prior to the first seed crop. Early spring applications of nitrogen will be effective at increasing creeping red fescue seed yields but nitrogen applica- tions made the previous fall will result in consistently higher yields.
Red thread can cause major cosmetic damage and is the most common disease found in fine fescue turfgasses. Lawn mixes, which commonly contain strong creeping red fescue, often see problems with red thread. You may spot it in your fine fescue turfgrass during rainy periods in spring, fall, or summer.
Bermuda grass is one of the world's toughest and most persistent grasses. It puts up a fight whenever the weather or diseases try to pin it down. It does the same when you try to get rid of it! If you have tried killing it, but nothing seems to work, have no fear.
Any weeds and poor looking grass around the lawn should be killed before any seeds are planted. The answer to the question is pretty straight forward and so is the process. At the start of the spring and at the start of the fall season completing the following steps will replant and repair your lawn.
The price reflects the quality of the sod and the hard work that has gone into engineering it. Zoysia grass has been developed using the latest plant breeding technology to create a grass that delivers quality all year round. It is shade tolerant and hardy. It is designed to require less watering and less fertilizer.
Unfortunately, tall fescue also has a downside. Most tall fescue in the state is infected with a fungal endophyte, Neotyphodium coenophialum (formerly called Acremonium coenophialum) that is toxic to animals.
The truth is too much watering or rather, bad watering practices, is the reason why Brown Patch is the biggest problem for fescue during the summer.
Five fine fescue taxa (strong creeping red fescue, slender creeping red fescue, Chewings fescue, hard fescue, and sheep fescue) are often grouped together and called “fine fescues.” There are known performance and management differences among these fine fescues.
With its fine leaves and shallow root system, Kentucky bluegrass is more vulnerable to being overtaken by weeds. Tall fescue has deeper roots and can compete against any weeds that try to take over.
The very thing that makes Bermuda a favorite grass for some people–its vigorous growth and hardiness–is exactly the reason why it can be such a frustration for those with Fescue. In the past, all we could do was dig Bermuda grass out or spray it with a non-selective herbicide and risk killing everything near it.