Is blue Festuca grass a perennial?

Asked by: Jeffrey Hughes

A truly versatile perennial grass, blue fescue has an eye-catching blue hue that lasts all year. With its clump-forming habit, blue fescue forms uniform balls of foliage topped with feathery straw bloom stalks in the summer. It can be used as an accent plant, in mass plantings, containers, and crevices.

Is Festuca annual?

This is an aggressive, early-maturing, cool-season annual grass that attains a height of from 20-60 cm. Sheaths and blades are smooth with narrow panicles, 7-20 cm.

What is the best blue fescue?

One of the best and most colorful of all Blue Fescue varieties, Festuca glauca ‘Elijah Blue’ is a wonderful dwarf ornamental grass, mostly grown for its superb, evergreen, bright silver-blue foliage.

Does fescue come back year after year?

About Fescue Grass Lawns

Under the right conditions, fescue is green year-round, but it can go dormant (brown) during severe heat and drought.

Does fescue come back every year?

Fescue grass should start to come out of dormancy and green up again. Fall is also the time when cool season grasses like fescue, should receive aeration and overseeding.

How do you take care of blue Festuca grass?

Care is very easy and blue fescue doesn’t require any care at all, except perhaps for watering during sweltering heat and in the first few weeks after planting. Adaptive to soil types with a great diversity of compositions, blue fescue is hardy and fears practically no disease at all.

Do you cut back blue fescue?

In climates where blue fescue is evergreen, you don’t need to cut them back in the spring. Everywhere else, the plants should be sheared back to a few inches from the ground to allow plenty of room for fresh new foliage to grow. Blue fescue can be a fairly short-lived perennial.

Is blue fescue grass evergreen?

About Blue Fescue Grass

Blue fescue plants are evergreen, but they do lose some of the older blades and grow new fresh deep blue leaves in spring. The older leaves adhere to the plant and spoil the bright coloration. However, you can simply comb them out with your fingers.

Does fescue come back after summer?

Fescue, as a cool-season grass, takes the summer off. Above all, don’t panic! The temperatures will go down and your grass will come back!!

Is fescue grass annual or perennial?

perennial grass

The fescues (Festuca spp.) compose a large genus of about 100 species of grasses. Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) is a deep rooted, cool season perennial grass. The plant produces vigorous growth in the spring and fall and its extensive root system helps it withstand drought conditions.

Does fescue go dormant in winter?

Fescue Grasses

Fescues (both Tall and Fine Fescues) are cool-season turfgrasses that are semi-dormant during winter in our transitional climate zone. During winter, Fescue grass blades do not grow much, but the root system may continue to grow (except during the coldest weeks of winter).

What does fescue look like in winter?

A sign of a healthy fescue lawn is that it keeps most or all of its dark green coloring through the winter. However, a poorly fertilized lawn or one with serious soil quality issues may take on a yellow coloring as a result of low access to nutrients like nitrogen.

How do you take care of fescue in the winter?

Fescue Grass Winter Care

Fescue grows in full sun to part shade and is drought-tolerant. However, depending on the cultivar, a drought of three weeks or more can kill the grass. Water as needed during the winter months if you do not get rain, advises North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension.

How long does fescue grass live?

It is the rhizomes from the bluegrass that hold the sod together and keep it from falling apart. Overseeding is important with tall fescue. A blade of grass only lives an average of 40 days before it dies. Grass must continue to produce new blades to replace the ones that are dying back.

How do you keep fescue alive in the summer?

For Tall Fescue, a cool season grass, apply up to 2” of water a week during the height of summer and 1” of water the rest of the year. Also, apply fungicide monthly as a preventive treatment all summer. Water just before sunrise to reduce evaporation. Don’t water in the evening.

Does fescue grass spread on its own?

Yes, it spreads, but not the way Bermuda grass spreads. While improved varieties of tall fescue have weak rhizomes, it is a bunchgrass. The plants get wider but do not establish new plants from the stems the way some grasses spread.

Why is my fescue grass dying?

There are a few different reasons your tall fescue lawn may be going brown or declining this time of year—the most common are related to drought stress, soils that are too wet, or brown patch disease.

How do you take care of fescue grass?

Established tall fescue lawns are low maintenance and need infrequent mowing and watering, except in very hot summers. Keep the lawn at 2 inches (5 cm.) tall and allow the plants to dry out in between deep watering. Few diseases bother the grass, but some rusts and fungus may become a problem, especially in new lawns.

Does fescue turn brown in summer?

Overall browning of tall fescue yards is very common in the summer. Most people think if they water the turf a few times here and there it will help the lawn get some color back, but this can actually do more harm than good!

Why does fescue turn yellow in winter?

Frost damage causes the tips of the blade to turn yellow, giving the lawn an overall yellow color. This is caused when the moisture in the grass blades freezes and ruptures the cells at the tip of the blades. This will grow out as Spring arrives and temperatures become more favorable for Tall Fescue growth.

Does fescue go dormant?

Kentucky bluegrass and fine fescues (creeping red fescue and hard fescue) are the first to go dormant followed by the more tolerant tall fescue and perennial ryegrass. In a lawn with a mixture of grasses (most lawns) the result is a patchy or thinning appearance as grasses go dormant at different times.

What grass stays green in winter?

This year I’ve decided to try my hand at overseeding my lawn with a cool season grass such as fescue, rye or bluegrass. These types of grasses will stay green throughout winter and well into spring. If you live a cooler climate, these grasses will stay green for you all year round.

What grass does not turn brown in winter?

Hybrid Bermuda is finer textured than common Bermuda and and doesn’t turn brown in winter as readily. Perhaps the toughest and most drought tolerant of all the warm-season grasses is zoysia. It’s also one of the most attractive, but it tends to go dormant sooner and stay dormant longer than the others.

What is the best year round grass?

For sunny areas where year-round green is a must, consider hardy grasses like tall fescues and dwarf tall fescues. These types of grasses are referred to as “cool-season” grasses and stay green year-round in temperate climates.

Is there a grass that doesn’t go dormant?

These grasses include Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactlyon) and Zoysiagrass (Zoysia japonica). These grasses can tolerate the extremely warm temperatures common in Southern California. Because these grasses are heat tolerant, they will not go dormant in the summer.