Dying Fescue Lawn at Rental House

[lamishra]

April is always an AWESOME month for fescue.

[HumanFactors]

Your landlord is lucky to have such a respectful tenant. The fact that you are taking pride in the home speaks volumes.

BTW - watering in the morning is definitely the way to go. Watering at night will encourage diseases and is a waste since the heat expelling from the soil just turns the water to steam.

[PDXmom]

Originally Posted by HumanFactors

Watering at night will encourage diseases

Why is this? I don't doubt you... just never heard this and wonder why it encourages diseases????

[Claire_F]

Originally Posted by PDXmom

Why is this? I don't doubt you... just never heard this and wonder why it encourages diseases????

Because the excess water sits there and encourages fungus growth.

[itscolduphere]

Originally Posted by Claire_F

Because the excess water sits there and encourages fungus growth.

True. Watering in early morning gives the grass the chance to drink up without a lot of evaporation. Also, the sun and heat during the day eliminate moisture sitting on it at night, when fungus can grow when temps reach about 70 degrees at night. Also, watering in the morning actually "rinses away" any fungus that may have started during the previous night because of dew or rain. Brown patch is the nastiest and can appear overnight. I learned this the hard way on my first property when I unknowingly watered new grass at night!

I used to have quite a nice lawn up north... but that was a different type of grass and a different climate.... so I appreciate the Fescue enlightenment

I'm not sure if this applies here also in NC with Fescue, but up north in the summer on really hot days (with bluegrass) it was good to run the irrigation/sprinkler for about 15 min. during the hottest part of the day to "cool down" the grass to prevent excess heat stress. But it's probably so hot down here all the time that it would be pointless.... just a guess.

[emanresu2]

Bear in mind that bermudagrass will only germinate when temps are consistently over 60-70 degrees depending on the cultivar, and bermuda likes to grow when its crazy hot. Unlike cool weather grasses like fescues, you need seed bermuda before fall, preferably late spring or early summer. You could do it now if you wanted to get a new lawn permit and water every day, but since you are renting (I assume relatively short term) your best bet may be to throw down some rye grass seed over the fescue.