Fescues grasses grow and adapt the best in the cool season. They
thrive the best in the Central to Northern states and up into
Canada. This species seeds easily and has many different sub
species. The tall bunching grasses are called tall fescue, the
short fine fescues are called hard fescue, chewings fescue,
creeping red, and sheep fescue. The hard fescue is the hardiest of
them all. It is also resistant to disease and can grow very well in
areas that are mainly shaded. It grows the slowest of all of the
fescues, and this makes it a very low maintenance type of grass.
Places that are not easily maintained use the hard fescue for
erosion, conservaton and reclamation planting in areas that are not
easily taken care of. All of the fescue grasses can handle a
drought and don’t need a lot of watering.
The fescue grasses can survive in the shade when most other cool
season grasses cannot. They also can tolerate and thrive in the hot
seasons of the lower transitions zones, and in the transition zone
that is too cold for the other grasses in the winter.
All of the fescue grass species stay green all year. Even though
this grass tolerates shade and cold very well, the Fine fescues
tolerate them much better than the Tall fescues. Since all of the
species remain green all of the time, they fill a grass field gap
caused by climate differences and changes when other grasses
cannot. The tall fescues are perfect for pastures and for the
animals to use for grazing. Also, the new variety of turf type tall
fescue grass can take heavy traffic, resist insects, have a strong
blade structure and a more attractive color that would be good to
have on a lawn. It is also safe to over seed the tall fescue grass
lawns when the lawn becomes too thin. The best time for the
overseeding is in the fall so that the grass is at its’ best by the
time the hot summer arrives. Even the newer and different varieties
of fescue grass can be overseeded at this time and then done
yearly.
