Fescue, long the choice for postcard-perfect Piedmont lawns, is fighting for its life this season not against the heat but rather against crabgrass, its black sheep cousin.
“It really wasn’t that bad of a summer for fescue,” says Scott Ewers, N.C. Cooperative Services agent for Mecklenburg County. “Most people don’t really understand that crabgrass is a warm season plant, not just a weed, so it will be growing much better than fescue, a cool season crop, throughout the summer months.”
Maybe they don’t understand, but that doesn’t make the relentless crabgrass — whose spread could rival kudzu on steroids — any more welcome to do-it-yourself yarders.
Crabgrass can germinate from March through early May in North Carolina, when soil temperatures reach 53 to 58 degrees at a four-inch depth, according to the N.C. State University Center for Turfgrass Environmental Research and Education. That’s why applying a crabgrass pre-emergent in the spring is the only way to prevent a crop.
Crabgrass also is happiest when lawns are at their shortest, so it is exposed to more light and has room to grow. For folks who didn’t inoculate their lawns, Ewers counsels, there is good news and bad news.
The bad news is, pulling crabgrass from the earth is like pulling the starter chain on its motor. It will just keep coming back — and spreading.
Infestation demands devastation, Ewers advises. Ironically, that’s the good news.
“Renovation of areas that are primarily crabgrass is the only option,” Ewers says, employing more diplomatic language than many crabgrass-taunted homeowners might use in the face of infestation.
In other words, just kill everything in the general area. Don’t be concerned with getting the bad staff and sparing the good stuff, because you’re going to be starting over with the good stuff, anyway.
“Start chemically treating now so you’re ready to replant in early September with fescue,” Ewers says. “This is an annual routine in sunny areas of turf where fescue is thin.”
And this year, it’s going to be routine in areas where patience is thin.
