Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Planting Grass in Missouri

By Sergio Anthony


Missouri is a perfect area for planting cool season grasses, especially tall fescue or fine fescue. Fescue grasses are cool season grasses that happen to be well adjusted to your warmer transitional zones of Missouri and also the cooler northern regions of the state.

Fescues are easily established from seed and have a tall bunching grass species known as tall fescue as well as a finer, lower growing species called fine fescue. Tall fescues are rougher and produce a very good looking lawn with low upkeep. With a little more work, fine fescue varieties just like creeping red, hard fescue, chewings fescue, and sheep fescue will offer a dwarf-like, very attractive grass surface to your lawn. Both tall and fine fescue are drought tolerant which enables them to make great lawns within the drier regions of Missouri.

Fescue grasses aren't just drought tolerant, but they are shade tolerant as well and will also grow very well in the lower areas of the state where summers can be too warm for other cool season grasses. Fescue grasses yield good lawns in Missouri due to the fact all varieties share three significant attributes. All fescues are shade tolerant, drought tolerant, and remain green all year round. Fine fescue varieties are usually more cold and shade tolerant and may grow better towards northern areas of the state and the tall fescue varieties can be more suitable within the southern areas but both can be utilized throughout the state of Missouri.

Fescue grasses will remain green all through the year while in the cooler climates but may go dormant in areas where the summers are too hot or where the winters are way too cold. If these the weather is present, fescues may change to a pale green color. Fescue grasses may be seeded alone but are often available in grass blends with Kentucky bluegrass and/or rye grass varieties. Some fescue varieties may also be used in over-seeding warm season grass lawns.

The optimum time for planting grass seed in Missouri is between Aug. 25 and Oct. 10. Keep under consideration that lawns seeded within a week of Labor Day usually tend to fill in completely for winter and produce a thicker, more dense turf visual appearance for the next spring in comparison to lawns seeded in October. You prefer to seed in the late summer because warmer temperatures along with sufficient water will advertise good grass seed germination.




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