Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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Green
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Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by Green » October 20th, 2012, 9:38 pm

Is Creeping Red Fescue the typical Fine Fescue that was planted here in CT, 30 years ago as part of the then-popular New England Blend (Bluegrass/Fine Fescue mix) that used to be so common here for new lawns?

How can I ID one type of fine fescue versus another and tell if it's Creeping Red or something else?

Here's the situation: Any home lawn in the neighborhood that still has the original (~30-year-old) grass is almost entirely fine fescue these days. And fine fescues aren't known to be spreaders, other than Creeping Red, from what I've read, rhyme not intended this time. :cool:

Today, people plant mostly elite KBG, TTPR, and TTTF up here. You don't see the fine fescues as much.

Our own lawn was almost entirely fine fescue and very dense as of a couple of years ago (also very brown in a lot of places, and very prone to disease and drying out, and it didn't mow well). There's no way the lawns were planted as almost 100% fine fescue when they were installed...that makes no sense. What could make a fine fescue take over and cover an entire lawn if fine fescues aren't known as spreading grasses (other than creeping red)?

Finally, there is still some of this original fine fescue in certain areas, after all of my rennovating and overseeding. In fact, I noticed some even encroaching onto the driveway lately! So I'm doing an experiment: I dug out a patch of it and planted it in a different area. I will watch it and see if it spreads next spring/fall. I'm guessing that if it spreads, it's likely Creeping Red (that's pretty creepy, since it's so close to Halloween.)


Any thoughts?
Last edited by Green on October 21st, 2012, 7:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

jglongisland
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Re: Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by jglongisland » October 20th, 2012, 10:14 pm

The stuff is very, very hard to kill. If you renovated in late summer it was probably dormant, so you didn't get it. I think the only way to eradicate a fine fescue lawn is to do a late spring reno. Tenacity can hurt it hard, however.

Green
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Re: Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by Green » October 20th, 2012, 10:22 pm

jglongisland wrote:The stuff is very, very hard to kill. If you renovated in late summer it was probably dormant, so you didn't get it. I think the only way to eradicate a fine fescue lawn is to do a late spring reno. Tenacity can hurt it hard, however.
It's no big deal...I've gotten rid of most of it where it matters. It's very controllable when you keep after it and overseed. I just am wondering WHY it's so persistent over the long-term. How is it that it can actually take over an entire lawn over a 20-year period, if it's just a bunchgrass?! And we're not just talking about lawns in deep shade, either. The proportion of bluegrass oddly seems to decline, and fine fescue increases over time until your entire lawn is almost totally fine fescue. Is that how it's known to grow, just crowding out everything else and spreading like crazy over the long-term?

btw, I would never seed extensively in Spring in this climate...been there, done that, failed (dried out/ weeds/fungus problems).

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Re: Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by GaryCinChicago » October 20th, 2012, 11:54 pm

Hey Green ... just a hunch, but how about you post some close up pics of your fine fescue for us?

Green
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Re: Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by Green » October 26th, 2012, 11:49 am

Picture of the previously mentioned fine fescue plant (and some blugrass mixed in--note the thick blades) that I dug up and relocated. This is a representative sample of the rest of the Fescue.

Does this look like Creeping Red to anyone?

Image


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Re: Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by jglongisland » October 26th, 2012, 11:56 am

Green wrote:Picture of the previously mentioned fine fescue plant (and some blugrass mixed in--note the thick blades) that I dug up and relocated. This is a representative sample of the rest of the Fescue.

Does this look like Creeping Red to anyone?

Image
It does look like fine fescue.

Green
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Re: Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by Green » October 31st, 2012, 3:58 pm

Watching that grass ID video, I see it's hard to tell the fine fescues apart. If this stuff can spread onto teh driveway, maybe it's creeping red. Also, I notice now, 2 months after verticutting, the new fine fescue that has come up is no longer bunchy looking, but is a number of tiny, individual plants.

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Re: Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by crabgrass » November 2nd, 2012, 10:58 am

How low has the lawn been cut historically? FF can tolerate very low mowing, which might make the creeping variety out-compete KBG. Also, how much shade is on the property?

Green
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Re: Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by Green » November 2nd, 2012, 2:16 pm

Not low at all...probably 3 inches during that time period. It just used to flop over from the wheels. So even if the mower was set to 2.5, it was mowing at 3 inches. Shade/sun used to be about 50/50 in terms of hours per day. Fertilizer program wasn't the best at the time, nor was irrigation.

Green
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Re: Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by Green » November 2nd, 2012, 3:11 pm

And for the lawn anthropologists, here is the breakdown among the lawns in the neighborhood...

We bulldozed and renovated almost everythiing last Fall, and planted a 75/25 TTPR/KGB mix (by weight). As I understand it, that should have resulted in theory in a lawn with more KBG than PR going by amount of seed, but the reality as we all know is the PR grows faster and dominates the mix. So we ended up with a 66% PR / 33% KBG lawn, with a strip of fine fescue left untouched, not to mention other weird bluegrasses like Triv, Compressa, etc that inevitably found their way back into the mix from untouched areas/rhizomes/stolons.

Then this year, I did an overseeding renovation, using KBG and TTTF. So now it's a KBG/TTTF/TTPR lawn and is actually pretty nice. (With still some fine fescue, Compressa, and maybe Triv (unfortunately) mixed in.

One lawn in the neighborhood was sodded with a KBG/PR mix from the get-go, and for years, that was the nicest lawn on the block. The owner is really good about keeping after it.

Another one was totally redone the right way a few years ago; sprayed RU, let it bake in the early August heat for a couple of weeks, and then bulldozed, took out soil/rocks, replaced with compost-based topsoil, and then planted a KBG/TTPR/FF mix. It's now established, and is the current benchmark lawn for the block (though I do expect ours to pass slightly ahead of it and become the new benchmark come Spring).

Another lawn was apparently renovated/overseeded with PR/KBG at some point in time. The owner of this one is also great about keeping it nice.

Another was apparently renovated/overseeded with PR/KBG at some point, and the owner has patched in the last few years using the exact same PR/KBG mix we used last year. But it's still not doing real great.

One lawn has completely gone to pot and is dirt and weeds.

Another one is a KBG/fine fescue mix, with some seed having gone down in recent years. The owner mows too low.

And the remaining two are the original grass, more or less. One is going pretty strong...the owner waters, mows, and fertilizes. This one is almost totally fine fescue and appears to have a ton of thatch.

The other is not great, but not terrible. The owner doesn't really keep after it. He's a great guy though...basically has been tackling other projects. The good thing is, he only has to mow like once every three weeks...it grows so slowly. It's mostly fine fescue as well, and some weeds. I gave him info on overseeding recently.

The point is, when allowed, this fine fescue has taken over in every case.

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Re: Creeping Red Fescue ID tips? And spreading?

Post by GaryCinChicago » November 2nd, 2012, 9:54 pm

Green wrote:Not low at all...probably 3 inches during that time period. It just used to flop over from the wheels. So even if the mower was set to 2.5, it was mowing at 3 inches. Shade/sun used to be about 50/50 in terms of hours per day. Fertilizer program wasn't the best at the time, nor was irrigation.
All description and actual care of Fine Fescue.

Remember fine fescue as "half".
Half the water, half the sun, half the mowing, half the fertilizer - and it will do you well.

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