Fescue - Usage
Suggested Usage for Fescues

Tall, chewings and creeping red fescue are used for lawns, renovating lawns, reseeding and overseeding lawns of cool season and warm season grasses. Fescues are grown on  playgrounds, ball fields, polo fields, parks, industrial and business sites and shady sites where average grasses tend not to grow. Anywhere an all year green lawn is desired. Fescues are also grown in low maintenance areas that can't easily be mown  and are left to grow freely. Tall fescue is also grown in pastures for a large part of the forage in the United States.

Being a cool season grass, Tall Fescue grows well in the shade in the southern states where the warm season grasses can’t hold up. This makes it a prime component of warm season grass mixtures for more coverage situations. Tall fescue is a medium to heavy wear grass and can be planted on playgrounds, sports fields, polo fields, park and general commercial areas as well as lawns and golf courses.   Dwarf varieties have been developed for a closer mown lawn with a finer appearance.

Tall fescue is one of the most widely used of the cool season grasses for utility turfs and in mixes of Bermuda lawns to provide winter greening while the Bermuda is in dormancy. While tall fescue cannot be mown as low as other lawn grasses the coverage is still quite acceptable and easily maintained. Left: Penn 1901 Tall Fescue. Penn 1901 Rebel Exeda Rebel Supreme Rebel IV The RebelsPenn Fescue PLUS Palmers Choice Palmers Shady Lawn Blend Kentucky 31 Summer Lawn Summer Lawn Plus Coronado Gold Endeavor Matador (Dwarf) Mow Less Olympic Gold Pure Gold GT Tomahawk GT

LAWNS - Tall fescues are cool season, bunching grasses, and have a coarse to medium texture and due to the upright growth is non-thatching. Tall fescue is a shade tolerant grass and the earlier seeding under trees that have shed their leaves allows the fescue to start establishing before the trees completely leaf out in the spring. Tall fescue should be overseeded every year for thicker sod formation and repair thinning areas. When properly managed tall fescue can provide a green lawn all year round. In the warmer areas it should not be mown under 1&½ inches to keep the sod base from drying out t and losing too much moisture. Mowing under that height can cause it to start thinning out.

Tall Fescue pastures have been in existence since the early immigrants introduced the grass to the Northern Continent upon their arrival. Tall fescue is used for pasture, hay and silage and is easily established and a lower maintenance pasturage than bluegrass.

CREEPING RED FESCUE is one of the most widely used fescues in mixtures for the production of dense and compact turfs, and primarily used in mixtures of bluegrasses and rye grasses for the shadier areas not covered by these grasses. Red fescue is used in southern lawns of the transition area to provide fall and spring color as an overseeded grass. 

HARD FESCUE is used in mixes and grown for utilitarian lawns. The best value of hard fescue is its salt and drought tolerance and the fact that it is highly resistant to disease and fungus  more so than the other fescues. Hard fescues are becoming more popular with the introduction of better varieties for lawns.

CHEWINGS FESCUE - The predominant use of chewings is in the mixes of other fine turf grass seeds. The non-aggressive growth, low growing habit, shade tolerance and drought resistant makes this fescue a beautiful lawn singly or in mixtures with the other cool grass varieties. Chewings fescue is used mainly in mixes and overseeding of perennial grass turf's to extend and enhance their usage.

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