# Bluegrass difficult



## M32075 (May 9, 2019)

First time posting. Last fall did a Hancock PRG seed blend in the front of the house. Probably temporary either going with a bluegrass or tall fescue come fall. I want a bluegrass lawn but concerned with the difficulty of it growing in fully. Is it as difficult as it seems with the long germination time or am I over thinking it?


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Check some of the Reno threads for timeframe and pictures on how it looks. Pete1313 has a kbg monostand from last year. Chadstoke is in the spring after a rough fall Reno (too much rain). Many others to get a view of what it entails.


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## FuzzeWuzze (Aug 25, 2017)

I feel ya, i really want to reno my back yard with KBG but that involves keeping my kids off the grass for like 3-4 weeks at a minimum and i just dont see that happening in Fall anytime soon. You have to walk in the lawn to access the garden spaces and my wife would kill me.


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## SNOWBOB11 (Aug 31, 2017)

Difficult I'd say no. More of a slow process. A reno in the late summer isn't going to be a finished product by the time winter comes with KBG. Or for that matter the next spring. My lawn still needs some filling in from a KBG reno 21 months ago.

KBG is really nice and IMO it's worth it to renovate to KBG if your thinking about it.

If it's taking too long for you you can always overseed the KBG with p rye if you wanted. I've thought of this before but decided not to.


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## bmitch05 (Oct 29, 2018)

SNOWBOB11 said:


> Difficult I'd say no. More of a slow process. A reno in the late summer isn't going to be a finished product by the time winter comes with KBG. Or for that matter the next spring. My lawn still needs some filling in from a KBG reno 21 months ago.
> 
> KBG is really nice and IMO it's worth it to renovate to KBG if your thinking about it.
> 
> If it's taking too long for you you can always overseed the KBG with p rye if you wanted. I've thought of this before but decided not to.


@wardconnor is the champion of the P Rye overseed with Kentucky Blue. Lawn looks amazing.


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## ericgautier (Apr 22, 2017)

I took pictures every week to show progress of my KBG reno.. - http://www.elusivemedia.com/gallery/v/members/eric/lawn/front/ but as @SNOWBOB11 said, it is really more of a slow progress/patience but worth it!


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## FuzzeWuzze (Aug 25, 2017)

bmitch05 said:


> SNOWBOB11 said:
> 
> 
> > Difficult I'd say no. More of a slow process. A reno in the late summer isn't going to be a finished product by the time winter comes with KBG. Or for that matter the next spring. My lawn still needs some filling in from a KBG reno 21 months ago.
> ...


This is one thing i didnt understand, if your yard is KBG + Rye, but you only overseed rye...over time arent you just going to have a primarily rye lawn with how fast it grows and how slow KBG grows/spreads?


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## ericgautier (Apr 22, 2017)

FuzzeWuzze said:


> This is one thing i didnt understand, if your yard is KBG + Rye, but you only overseed rye...over time arent you just going to have a primarily rye lawn with how fast it grows and how slow KBG grows/spreads?


I wonder the same.

Quick searches

https://turf.purdue.edu/tips/2009/08102009_grassmix.html

http://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/mitgc/article/1990184.pdf



> In summary,
> perennial ryegrass was able to produce 4 times the tiller, 10 times
> the leaf mass, and 15 times the root mass in the first six weeks
> after planting as Kentucky bluegrass.





> Kentucky
> bluegrass, as it turned out, was quite a vigorous competitor for
> light. Where the two species were partitioned beneath the soil
> surface (eliminating root competition), Kentucky bluegrass tended
> to overpower perennial ryegrass.


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## Suburban Jungle Life (Mar 1, 2018)

FuzzeWuzze said:


> I feel ya, i really want to reno my back yard with KBG but that involves keeping my kids off the grass for like 3-4 weeks at a minimum and i just dont see that happening in Fall anytime soon. You have to walk in the lawn to access the garden spaces and my wife would kill me.


You could cut it in half and reno over 2 years. Then you still have half a lawn and access to the garden


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## FuzzeWuzze (Aug 25, 2017)

Suburban Jungle Life said:


> FuzzeWuzze said:
> 
> 
> > I feel ya, i really want to reno my back yard with KBG but that involves keeping my kids off the grass for like 3-4 weeks at a minimum and i just dont see that happening in Fall anytime soon. You have to walk in the lawn to access the garden spaces and my wife would kill me.
> ...


Maybe i could get away with that, but its only 1000 sqft so it seems like its creating a ton more work when i could bang out the entire kill/scarify/seed/fert in like 4 hours of total time 

The good(?) news is that we have pretty warm fall's and winters here. So my current plan is to kill in early August/rekill mid august and then wait for it to start cooling down/raining to put seed down because the kids wont be out there anyways.


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## FuzzeWuzze (Aug 25, 2017)

ericgautier said:


> FuzzeWuzze said:
> 
> 
> > This is one thing i didnt understand, if your yard is KBG + Rye, but you only overseed rye...over time arent you just going to have a primarily rye lawn with how fast it grows and how slow KBG grows/spreads?
> ...


Interesting, so through combination of those 2 studies it seems that Rye snuffs out KBG, not by outgrowing it but by creating massive rootballs. The KBG only seemed to thrive when its root zone was cordoned off from the Rye's, which obviously isnt anywhere near real world. Which makes sense, we know you need to do 80/20 by weight mix at a minimum if you want any KBG in your yard. Sadly doesnt really say much about overseeding if Rye is able to push out already established KBG or not. That first one just says PRG creates much bigger plants from seed faster, which we already know.


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## JDgreen18 (Jun 14, 2018)

I did a full kbg reno last fall. It was 11k sf so it was 11 times bigger than yours. As far was doing the reno everything is the same only difference is the time for stuff(weather) to go wrong. I had a few heavy downpours that washed out large areas. It does look fantastic now tho. I also did a tttf & kbg reno last year. It fills in much quicker and in my opinion looks just as good as all kbg.
This being said only doing 1000sf so go for it...lol


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## ksturfguy (Sep 25, 2018)

FuzzeWuzze said:


> bmitch05 said:
> 
> 
> > SNOWBOB11 said:
> ...


Would probably depend upon your weather but i think one reason why KBG stays the dominant strand is because PRG doesn't fair as well with extreme heat and cold. So your going to have more PRG die off each year and KBG will fill in the gaps.


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## social port (Jun 19, 2017)

I would say that, compared to other cool season varieties, bluegrass is relatively difficult. Overall, I would say that germination comes about speedily enough. The challenge lies in the phase where it just looks at you for several weeks. The situation gets very real: This beautiful grass has germinated, and you get excited about how things are going. Then, after one week, the grass looks basically the same, and you begin to wonder whether you should be doing something differently. Water less. Maybe more. Maybe it needs more sunlight. Whoa; is that disease I see? A weed, perhaps? Would a little spoon feed hurt?
I mean, you (hopefully) enter the process of growing bluegrass fully informed about the sprout and pout phase, and yet still, you end up asking all of the above questions.
But the struggle isn't confined to your head.
If you don't have irrigation, keeping up with newly sprouted fescue can be a challenge. Multiply that several times for bluegrass.
What can sometimes be overlooked is what the duration of the pout phase makes you susceptible to. While you are waiting for the baby bluegrass to begin growing, there are plenty of weed seeds looking to take advantage of the situation: Bare dirt, nutrition, and lots of water. This makes an expertly executed fallowing process a necessity for growing bluegrass, IMO. You also hold your breath every time there is a downpour. Finally, whatever diseases you might worry about when watering newly sprouted rye or fescue, you've got to worry about them for that much longer with the bluegrass.

Not to overly complicate things or to say it is terribly difficult -- when you grow any cool season grass, you obsess about things that you could have done differently, worry about downpours, scrutinize for possible disease, watch a few weeds come up etc. But it is more of all of that with bluegrass.
The thing is, once you get it up and running, you don't need to be concerned about overseeding every year. That is a big plus for many people, and you can get a fall preM in as well. Your climate seems well suited for bluegrass.


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## Budstl (Apr 19, 2017)

If you do decide to seed kbg, go light. 2lbs/m is what I'd recommend. It will spread and fill in. In my experience I'd see germination in 5 to 6 days. You just gotta sit back and be patient. Let the grass do it's thing.


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## FuzzeWuzze (Aug 25, 2017)

Budstl said:


> If you do decide to seed kbg, go light. 2lbs/m is what I'd recommend. It will spread and fill in. In my experience I'd see germination in 5 to 6 days. You just gotta sit back and be patient. Let the grass do it's thing.


Yet another question ive always had comes from this...why 2lbs for KBG or 10Lbs for PRG/Fescue?

I understand that spreading more means that the plants will get crowded and the weak will die, but whats wrong with that?

I bring it up because its common for places that want quick dense turf like golf courses to seed 2-3x the "recommended" value. Yes i realize its throwing away seed, but if you have it and dont care why not?

For example i have 4lbs of KBG, i only need 2lbs...why not just throw 3 or 3.5# down and keep the extra .5# if needed to fill in any large issues that arise? Its not like if i put down 2# that i have use for the other 2# if its KBG overseeding seems to be fairly pointless.
Same goes for PRG, if i have 15#, why bother storing 5# until next season and not just throw it down now? Especially when i can get a 25# bag of top performing variety PRG for $65. In the grand scheme of how much i spend on water/fert/herbicides/fungicides a year $65 is a drop in the bucket.

I realize this may only be true for those of us with small yards, but curious what you guys gotta say why too much seed is a bad thing.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Too much seed is like going to a restaurant on mother's day. It will be packed with people. The A/C won't be able to keep up and it will be hot and humid. The kitchen will not able to keep up with the food orders and you will be starving waiting for food.

The same thing happens if you apply too much seed. They will be fighting for nutrients (water). The close quantity in a humid environment then leads to fungus.

Lastly saving some seed of the same type gives you the ability to repair an area that got damaged by fungus or city workers fixing a sewer line or any other unknown.


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## ksturfguy (Sep 25, 2018)

You need less KBG seed because the seed is a lot smaller so 2 lbs of KBG is a lot more actual seeds vs 2 lbs of TTTF.


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## Budstl (Apr 19, 2017)

Agreed with @ksturfguy and @g-man. It's always nicebto have extra seed in case of a wash out too.

This is from the University of Tennessee.


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## FuzzeWuzze (Aug 25, 2017)

g-man said:


> Too much seed is like going to a restaurant on mother's day. It will be packed with people. The A/C won't be able to keep up and it will be hot and humid. The kitchen will not able to keep up with the food orders and you will be starving waiting for food.
> 
> The same thing happens if you apply too much seed. They will be fighting for nutrients (water). The close quantity in a humid environment then leads to fungus.
> 
> Lastly saving some seed of the same type gives you the ability to repair an area that got damaged by fungus or city workers fixing a sewer line or any other unknown.


Then why do professional turf managers like baseball fields/golf courses routinely do it? Just because they have aggressive fungicide programs?


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I don't know of golf course doing this. I know athletic field guys doing seedbanking. It involves dropping seeds like every week. Why? Because the soccer cleats destroy the fields. They know that a lot of the seeds will not make it. They also have the challenge of keeping the fields open for play, so they can't just shut everything down for a perfect germination.


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## ksturfguy (Sep 25, 2018)

First of all I'm not sure this is really a common practice for athletic fields and golf courses. They might overseed a lot because their turf gets torn up but they rarely do a complete reno from seed. Most athletic fields and golf courses use sod.

When starting from seed, I do think going slightly over the suggested rate is ok and some people do recommend it for "insurance" purposes but if recommended rate is 5 LBS and your throw down 15 pounds then your asking for problems. But going 1/2 LB to 1 or 2 pounds over then your probably good.

I have thrown seed down way too heavy in spots just to see what happens and idk how much heavier vs recommended rate but it was a lot and each time grass grew like normal, was super thick for a few weeks, and then after a couple months it had pretty much all died out. Now granted I didn't use any fungicides so maybe that would have helped.


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## craigdt (Apr 21, 2018)

I did an aggressive KBG overseed/70% of a full reno last fall and I'm just now seeing the KBG start to give some good vertical growth.

Man, its slow to germinate, and grows super slow at the beginning. But its starting to look really nice

Much different than the fescue that I am used to.


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## seiyafan (Apr 3, 2019)

I know sod farms do it because they want a dense sod in the first year.


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## Guest (May 10, 2019)

I have a hard time keeping kids out of my yard, watering 1-2 robes a day for three weeks is not possible for me until I retire.

I want a good lawn that isn't crazy high maintenance. I think kbg looks the best. You can save on maintenance knowing it is rhizominous and can fill dead spots.

That's where the good news stops and fescue starts to sound better. It germinates faster. Newer cultivates are finer blades and darker, very kbg like. Less water. Less fert. Less mowing. It is a less demanding grass type.

Thus, after weighing out the above, I will stick to tttf even though I love the look and low mowing ability of kbg.


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## maynardGkeynes (May 23, 2017)

I love PRG, and if I could do a PRG lawn that looks like yours I'd be a happy camper. True, KBG spreads to fill bare spots, but OTOH PRG doesn't produce thatch, which in excess can make a *** lawn look a less than vibrant. TTTF can look very nice, but to me PRG and KBG top it in the beauty contest. PRG is definitely a lot easier to establish.


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## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

FuzzeWuzze said:


> g-man said:
> 
> 
> > Too much seed is like going to a restaurant on mother's day. It will be packed with people. The A/C won't be able to keep up and it will be hot and humid. The kitchen will not able to keep up with the food orders and you will be starving waiting for food.
> ...


To repair and maintain high traffic areas, which is a difficult task, to say the least. Look at soccer/lacrosse goal mouths, outfield wear spots and between the hash marks on a football field after weeks of heavy use. The same goes for tees/greens/aprons and othe high traffic areas. The goal is to get high rates of seed down to ensure something survives (shotgun method, I call it-Put enough lead in the air and you're bound to hit something.). Many sports turf managers will drop seed before a practice or game to "cleat it in".


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## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

g-man said:


> I don't know of golf course doing this. I know athletic field guys doing seedbanking. It involves dropping seeds like every week. Why? Because the soccer cleats destroy the fields. They know that a lot of the seeds will not make it. They also have the challenge of keeping the fields open for play, so they can't just shut everything down for a perfect germination.


Sorry, just read back after posting and saw you covered this point.


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## M32075 (May 9, 2019)

Thank you all for your help. I love the how my PRG front lawn came out neighbors keep giving me positive reviews. Quick germination a major plus nice uniform growth and that shine is incredible. Making it through the summer I doubt it. From what I heard it's not deep rooted and I don't have a sprinkler system so it should be interesting how it looks come August. I have time to ponder a game plan of either seed super store tall fescue or a Kentucky blue blend.


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## maynardGkeynes (May 23, 2017)

M32075 said:


> Thank you all for your help. I love the how my PRG front lawn came out neighbors keep giving me positive reviews. Quick germination a major plus nice uniform growth and that shine is incredible. Making it through the summer I doubt it. From what I heard it's not deep rooted and I don't have a sprinkler system so it should be interesting how it looks come August. I have time to ponder a game plan of either seed super store tall fescue or a Kentucky blue blend.


Late July and August are a challenge for any cool season grass, including KBG and TTTF. Even though you don't have a sprinkler system, try just a regular old sprinkler twice a week in the morning if it hasn't rained. You want an inch a week, but no more. See how the PRG does. There are so many factors. The thing with PRG is that even if you do suffer heat loss in August, by mid-late September, you should have a real nice lawn again after a reseed. I pretty much plan on doing a reseed every year now. It's just not that big a deal with PRG or TTTF. I just like the look of PRG more than TTTF. Another thing with TTTF lawns is that as they age, the blades start to get wider and clumpier. So, you have to renovate anyway, even if the lawn has survived. KBG survives, but thatch can become a problem over time, and it's a fair amount of work to get rid of it. So, no cool season grass is perfect in the transition zone. Just the way it is, but all can look really nice.


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## BXMurphy (Aug 5, 2017)

social port said:


> I would say that, compared to other cool season varieties, bluegrass is relatively difficult. Overall, I would say that germination comes about speedily enough. The challenge lies in the phase where it just looks at you for several weeks. The situation gets very real: This beautiful grass has germinated, and you get excited about how things are going. Then, after one week, the grass looks basically the same, and you begin to wonder whether you should be doing something differently. Water less. Maybe more. Maybe it needs more sunlight. Whoa; is that disease I see? A weed, perhaps? Would a little spoon feed hurt?


Really nice reply in a very interesting thread as I contemplate my own fall Reno in the fall. Would love to hear more about an expertly executed fallowing.

Following with appreciation,
Murph


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## social port (Jun 19, 2017)

hey, @BXMurphy. Those words sound extravagant now as I read them back to myself. What I probably should have said was, growing bluegrass requires a better fallowing process than what I did . This is also to say that I am not an expert. g-man recently mentioned that fallowing is an agricultural term. The basic idea is that after you do your kill, you take a few weeks to see if you have any weed seeds hanging around in your soil. That involves lots of watering -- and the bad kind of watering as well: Frequent and shallow -- maybe 4-6 x day for 10 or so minutes a pop. This process gives you the opportunity to kill off any weed seeds that might be planning to shoot for the stars while you are trying to grow some premium turf.
The important message is that it is not enough to kill your existing turf/weed stand etc when you are planning a renovation. After you do your kill (which may take a couple of gly apps), you want to water any seed or leftover plants that may still be there. That is an important step that can be overlooked, especially if someone has been reading about people doing quick kills and reseeding. There is nothing wrong with that. However, I do think that, when growing bluegrass, you want to give all of the extraneous seeds near your soil's surface the chance to grow so that you can kill them off. You want to have as clean of a slate as possible so that the only plants coming up are bluegrass plants.

In my effort to grow a small area of bluegrass last fall, I didn't water enough after I killed off my fescue. I also waited too long before I roughed up the soil. The result was that I had many more weeds than I expected come up with my bluegrass. That's not what you want to see happen after so much planning and hard work. Tenacity is great, but a combo of 'expert' fallowing and tenacity is the better plan.


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## Budstl (Apr 19, 2017)

It's best to start your kill late june/early july and have the seed bed ready to by late august depending on the area you live in.


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

FuzzeWuzze said:


> Then why do professional turf managers like baseball fields/golf courses routinely do it? Just because they have aggressive fungicide programs?


I think they (or you) can get away with it by very closely managing the new turf (assess at least daily or more), having all the needed tools and (mostly very expensive) supplies on hand, ready to go as the inevitable issues arise, and having the background and experience to take action before a problem leads to failure or unacceptable turf damage.

I don't see it as unusual on professionally managed turf to have, say, a superintendent identify a tough problem, take a couple turf samples and send it to their favorite turf lab or consultant for confirmation of exactly what it is, apply what's needed from an array of choices on hand, all within the span of 24 hours. I don't think that level of management is necessary for success in all cases of hyper-densely seeded turf, but it is needed if tricky problems start to arise.


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

M32075 said:


> First time posting. Last fall did a Hancock PRG seed blend in the front of the house. Probably temporary either going with a bluegrass or tall fescue come fall. I want a bluegrass lawn but concerned with the difficulty of it growing in fully. Is it as difficult as it seems with the long germination time or am I over thinking it?


The easy answer is if you start asking yourself questions like this, you might not be ready for KBG. 

Just takes more patience and a belief that it will all turn out ok in the end so don't overthink it or start changing things you know should work because they are seeming not to. I did my first fescue / KBG mix last Fall and from then through most of April was convinced it was a failure that would have to be tolerated all Summer to be fixed in coming Fall. It stayed unusually thin with areas of winter weed salad all over.

I left it alone just managing as I ordinarily would with a shot of slow release fert when it seemed to wake up and usual pre and 3 way weed control. Here it is mid-May and it all turned out excellent. Started growing, fast, thickened up almost miraculously, weeds are all gone. It's going to turn out amazing - much different than I thought based on experience with fescue.


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## maynardGkeynes (May 23, 2017)

Delmarva Keith said:


> M32075 said:
> 
> 
> > First time posting. Last fall did a Hancock PRG seed blend in the front of the house. Probably temporary either going with a bluegrass or tall fescue come fall. I want a bluegrass lawn but concerned with the difficulty of it growing in fully. Is it as difficult as it seems with the long germination time or am I over thinking it?
> ...


KBG is a challenge for me on my front lawn because it faces SW, which means it gets sun at the hottest part of the day. I've never been able to get it to establish well there. In the back, it does great, as it gets sun in the morning, and shade when it really hot. I would say that the site is as important as the climate zone you happen to be in. The only way to know is to try and see what happens.


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## M32075 (May 9, 2019)

My front and backyard are in full sun all day. I have a ranch house so I have a five foot section of shade from the house that's slowly despair's as the day progresses. Any cool season grass I grow I think is going to struggle if not totally totally die come August. From what I read tall fescue is deep rooted so maybe I can keep it alive till September?


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## social port (Jun 19, 2017)

M32075 said:


> My front and backyard are in full sun all day. I have a ranch house so I have a five foot section of shade from the house that's slowly despair's as the day progresses. Any cool season grass I grow I think is going to struggle if not totally totally die come August. From what I read tall fescue is deep rooted so maybe I can keep it alive till September?


If I understand you correctly...you should not have any major difficulties with keeping fescue alive during the summer in New York. My lawn is mostly full sun, and I experience summers that are hot for months with virtually no breaks. As long as I water as needed, the fescue does ok. I may lose a little due to heat or lack of water when I am not attentive enough, but the losses are inconsequential (i.e., I don't really notice them).
There is the issue of disease as well, but it sounds like you are wondering about the ability of a cool season grass like fescue to do ok in summer heat.


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

M32075 said:


> My front and backyard are in full sun all day. I have a ranch house so I have a five foot section of shade from the house that's slowly despair's as the day progresses. Any cool season grass I grow I think is going to struggle if not totally totally die come August. From what I read tall fescue is deep rooted so maybe I can keep it alive till September?


I think fescue is a lot better in shade than KBG. I've grown decent fescue in some pretty high shade sites. From memory, Firecracker SLS is one cultivar tested to be especially shade tolerant. There are others too. There's a separate section in the NTEP reports for a shade eval, again from memory I think somewhere in Illinois.

For heat and dry, fescue will go dormant later than KBG but does not recover from dormancy as welL. The upshot is its easier to keep fescue out of dormancy but better if you keep it watered at least well enough so it doesn't get there. I have a neighbor with a fully KBG lawn that even with irrigation, by August you'd swear is dead as a brick but it always recovers fully. Fescue tends to thin out if it goes dormant. But fescue or KBG, anything baked in the sun without supplemental water is risky.

Edit to add: just saw and agree with @social port 's post. NY is practically cool season heaven. What type of grass do you have now?


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## Budstl (Apr 19, 2017)

M32075 said:


> My front and backyard are in full sun all day. I have a ranch house so I have a five foot section of shade from the house that's slowly despair's as the day progresses. Any cool season grass I grow I think is going to struggle if not totally totally die come August. From what I read tall fescue is deep rooted so maybe I can keep it alive till September?


Here's my first year kbg lawn grown in st louis with full sun. Pic is from 7/31/18. I do have irrigation.


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## maynardGkeynes (May 23, 2017)

St.L is quite similar to DC, where I live, and is a challenge for KBG. I'm impressed! :thumbup:


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## M32075 (May 9, 2019)

Delmarva Keith said:


> M32075 said:
> 
> 
> > My front and backyard are in full sun all day. I have a ranch house so I have a five foot section of shade from the house that's slowly despair's as the day progresses. Any cool season grass I grow I think is going to struggle if not totally totally die come August. From what I read tall fescue is deep rooted so maybe I can keep it alive till September?
> ...


I have a PRG lawn I did last fall. I'm in long island NY so it's the very southern part of NY. No sprinkler system so try my best to keep on top of it


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

M32075 said:


> Delmarva Keith said:
> 
> 
> > M32075 said:
> ...


If you can grow PRG, you can grow fescue or KBG. :thumbup:


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