You are in Oklahoma right? Which part?

Oklahoma City

Well here is your challenge, the summer heat. In order to have a chance to grow fescue, you will need unlimited amounts of water to keep it alive. With the amount of water you are going to need brings up all kind of mold and fungal problems. If you look around at your neighbors, I bet the vast majority have Bermuda, with a Zoysia lawn throw in there for fun.

So what I think you are going to find is your Fescue will die back in the long hot summers there and you will have to replant it every fall. I would suggest Texas common Saint Augustine or Palmetto, but there is no SA of any kind available in the OKC area.

My back yard is, unfortunately, too shady for zoysia. I checked into St. Augustine but can't even imagine what it would cost to sod over 13,000 Sq. ft. and I'm pretty sure it needs a little more sun. I'm determined to figure something out... I just don't know what yet :)

I've been reading a lot on this board and think I may be getting closer to understanding what I need to do.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

"So what I think you are going to find is your Fescue will die back in the long hot summers there and you will have to replant it every fall. "

What he said. I feel your pain. I have a very shaded lot (7 mature pecan trees on my lot which is surrounded by...more pecan trees...it's an old pecan grove) in Oklahoma. I've finally resigned myself to the fact that I need to overseed/reseed every fall. My lawn looks awesome about 9-10 months of the year. Around this time of year though, it starts cratering. Actually, it started earlier this year because of the extreme heat we've had (I think we've already had 8 days over 100...what is that all about?!).

I've tried cornmeal, spraying with milk, and some consumer grade anti-fungals. I tried the anti-fungals in one test spot and they didn't seem to help. The only thing I have not tried is hiring someone to hit the yard with commercial grade anti-fungals. I fertilize exclusively with soybean meal and occasionally alfalfa when I seed.

Having said all that, I am moving to a house in another city...and the house doesn't have many big trees (sob). So the grass is almost all bermuda. I am not a fan of the stuff, as it gets into flower beds and pretty much anywhere else it wants to go, and just isn't an attractive grass to me. BUT...it is much more resilient than TTTF and I just have to show it a little love and it will look pretty good when it's hot out.

Good luck to you.

Not a big fan of bermuda myself. I had it at my last house and this time chose zoysia (for my sunny front yard) so I wouldn't have to constantly battle the "creepy" stuff.

Did the cornmeal not work as a preventative for your fescue? I just posted a new message with my modified plan-of-attack for next spring and was hoping to use cornmeal verses my original plan (Heritage G - which, according to brown-patch studies I have found online, is the most effective preventative chemical if applied every 28 days.) I think Heritage is what many professionals use.

Cornmeal is obviously more appealing, for the simple reason that it is CHEAP... and organic, of course. But, If you didn't get good results in our crazy climate... hmmmm... just when I thought I had it figured out... lol :)

Sooner girl good luck to, you are going to need it. I am a sod farmer just south of you on I-35 across the Red River in GodÂs country, and I know quite a few Well-To-Do folks in OKC that insist on Fescue lawns. They live in well established neighborhoods with lots of trees, use professional service to maintain the lawn year round. One I know is a PGA tour pro, Dr. Gill Morgan. Anyway the point is in the summer the lawns have to be watered every day to keep it alive, commercial applications of fungicide, and replanted every fall. There is a reason Bermuda is king in your area, it is the only grass that can take the summer heat there and survive. Saint Augustine could work in the heat, but winter kill would be a major problem and the reason you do not find it available at sod farms like my friends over at Easton Sod Farms

Good Luck

TW

Texas-weed;
I know Bermuda is the standard in Oklahoma, but even IT won't grow in my back yard - it's WAY too shady. If it were YOUR yard, what would you plant back there? I'm most certainly open to any and all suggestions. Even if I have to seed something every year, I'm ok with that as long as it looks good. I figure $300/year for a great looking yard is reasonable. However, if the cornmeal doesn't do the trick with the brown-patch, it's the $80/month for Heritage that I'm not crazy about... Do the professional guys spray something better than Heritage? My yard is really big and I'm afraid they'd charge more than I pay right now.

If fescue, St. Augustine, Bermuda, and KBG won't work what are my other options? Guess I shouldn't have killed the Dallis grass!! lol :)

Please tell me what you would do if it were your yard. I have tons of planting beds and can show you a picture if you need to see how much grass I need.

Thanks so much for your advice. Lord knows I need it!!
Melissa

"If it were YOUR yard, what would you plant back there?"

Hostas :) haha couldn't resist.

Just wanted to come back and see if maybe TW has any info on Reveille or Jonathan Green Black Beauty.

Reveille claims it's the most drought tolerant bluegrass and has the water requirements of bermuda.

I saw it in another thread and thought it might be helpful in your situation to find out if the claims are true.

Well...I will say that I did not put the cornmeal down as a preventative. That is probably a big part of the problem. I put some down in the area in early June at the first signs of problems, but that area just got worse.

This specific area gets more sun than the rest of my yard, but that still isn't very much. A little full sun up to early afternoon, filtered light through mid-late afternoon, then shade after that.

Anyway, I say, go for it. Prevention is much better than trying to whip something that has already started.

Oh, have you considered something like Shadow Turf? Apparently, it is a somewhat shade tolerant zoysia variety. I think dchall tried it...maybe he will chime in.

I read the info on Black Beauty and it seems like a really nice, dark green grass but I didn't see anything on how disease resistant it is. When I review the NTEP studies, that's the first place I go... warm weather/brown patch. Of course, trying to actually FIND the "winning" grass is dang near impossible - I mean, who the heck sells PST-R5DR? lol :)

And the hostas... I have 28 different varieties back there! Too bad I can't just use them as ground cover! But I have a mastiff and a huge lab who need grass... so they can pee on it and leave even MORE dead spots. Maybe I should gravel the whole thing.

Yardbird - I was so excited when I read about ShadeTurf. It sounds great! But... I went to calculate how much I would need and, with the large order discount, it would cost me $16,560 for enough plugs to do my yard. I don't think I could even bring myself to pay that much for full sod! Seems like a good alternative though! :)

"I mean, who the heck sells PST-R5DR? lol :)"

Yeah. Some of the higher ranking varieties are harder to find. When it has a name like that I think it's not commercially available yet. You might need to slip a case of beer to one of the grad students working on the turf trials.

I was curious and did a search and found another piece of marketing that also claims better disease resistance.

You might want to contact them for more info. Like I said I've never used this seed but I have used some of their other seeds with good results. The biggest reason I like them is I had an issue with germination this spring in one area. It was probably the fungus issue I had, but when I emailed them for help the response I got came from someone that was very knowledgeable and not just some customer support person with little training. Turned out he was a VP of something there. That gets a big thumbs up in my book.

My biggest resistance to trying it is that I have some tall fescue in parts of my lawn and it looks like a weed. Probably K31. I really hate the way it feels walking over it barefoot but I don't usually walk there barefoot and it stays green longer if I am too busy to water so I'm starting to consider it.

Very interesting. I didn't see any southern states on the advertisement but I'm going to call them tomorrow and see what they say. I'll let you know!

Soonergirl, I understand the tree and shade issue. I do have one thought, it is a long shot, but maybe worth checking into. Get on the Web and search for TULSA FESCUE SEED. It is adapted to the area and might stand a chance. I know all th eACE hardware stores in Tulsa carry it in early spring and fall.

Yardbird - I was so excited when I read about ShadeTurf. It sounds great! But.

Did not take you long to figure out that scam huh?

"Did not take you long to figure out that scam huh?"

Would this work?

Buy 14 flats for about $1.2k to cover around 800 sq ft. After a couple of months, when it has filled in, use that as plugs to cover the rest of the yard.

5 trays covers 840 sq ft. Remove 50% of it as 2x2" plugs, 420 sq ft and you get the equivalent of about 275 flats which will cover around 16,000 sq ft.

Or am I completely off base?

Just buy one flat of ShadowTurf and see how it spreads for you. For a zoysia is spreads very fast. It is also more than tolerant of a little shade. I have pictures of it growing under an English walnut canopy that is only 5 feet above the ground. It looks very good.

Mine is having issues with the drought. It looked great in 2007 when we had all the rain. In our current water deficit, it wants to die without warning. If you are sure to water it every week, it should do great for you.

Good grief, I did not realize it was that expensive! Wow.

FWIW - I've got a few very shady areas in my lawn. Under a wonderful cedar elm which blocked out all sun I put down Shawdow Turf - 1 flat. It was an experiment. My mistake was placing the plugs too far apart. This was in April 2008. By Sept it hardly moved, and I needed to trim the tree anyway. So now it probably gets 1-2 hours of sun and it's rather filtered at that. It's finally spreading NOW, despite the drought. I do water it, but not more than 1x/week.

My initial plan had been to plug the planted shadow turf in another shaded area, but after a year of barely moving, I decided to put in zoysia sod (March 09) - it gets a bit more sun in some areas,but there's another couple of stretches that basically get no direct sun all day. I'd heard zoysia wasn't as shade tolerant as the claims made it seem, but guess where it's growing best? In the shade. In the sun it's surviving, but it's nowhere near as green as in the shade. I water it 1x/week with a sprinkler, and the sunny spots an extra day with a hand held.

It's been in the 100s here for the past month and hasn't rained in forever.

Not sure that helps you any, just wanted to share my experience with some of these types. We also have bermuda, but that's in direct sun 6-10 hours per day. A patch of St. A that the city put in along the street is long since dead.