Lolium Species, Alta Fescue, Reed Fescue, Tall Fescue

This Eurasian species was brought over to the US and Canada from Europe during colonial times to be a good grazing grass for pasture for ...Read Morelivestock, as many American native grasses were not so good for that. It naturalized a long time ago and is one of the major grasses, along with Kentucky Bluegrass, that composes meadows in eastern North America. In the 20th century it began to be used as a turfgrass for sports fields, playgrounds, roadsides, airfields, and other low quality turf areas. It is the one of the most drought and wear tolerant of the cool season turfgrasses. It is more coarse-textured than the other cool season lawn grasses and does not blend well with them. Five cultivars were used in the 1970's for lawns with 'Alta' and 'Kentucky 31' as the most common. Newer more fine-textured cultivars have been developed.

Tall fescue has a wide coarse leaf that tends to brown at the cut end. The stem of the grass is significant in length and hard like a sti...Read Moreck - like walking on sticks. The sheaf of this stick-stem is tough and fibrous and seems to linger around as thatch.

It's "tall" because it grows fast. If you don't mow it all the time the sticks grow longer until once you do mow you have only sticks, no leaves. It seems to grow almost twice as fast as Kentucky bluegrass.

The roots of this grass seem to be deep and fibrous. If finer turf grass stresses for any reason, the fescue takes over. We must have accidentally overseeded with this fescue or perhaps it was included in a grassseed mixture and we're trying to eradicate it. It's very hard to pull out by hand and we've needed a trowel to dig out the roots. Seems to spread out in a mat if unattended.

This grass is definitely tough and resists drought. Would be good in an public setting for a low-maintenance turf. However, it's an unattractive grass for the home lawn: the color is flat, the texture is coarse, and it's unpleasant to walk on.

Tall Fescue Schedonorus phoenix is Naturalized in Texas and other States.