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#16
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Fescue in Mid-South GA?
Wow, this sounds wonderful. I will see if I can get seed, locally. I would
think it to be a good turf to overseed with so I can have green turf all winter. The St. Augustine does stay relatively brown, but spotty after a freeze. Have you ever overseeded with it? Thanks for the overall view. Much appreciated. Victoria On Wed, 11 Jun 2003 20:12:21 -0700, Tom Jaszewski Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai A unique variety of dwarf fescue, Bonsai provides a slower, lower growing and darker green turf that surpasses virtually all other tall fescues available today. An outstanding, fine textured turf for both home and commercial landscapes, Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai exhibits good disease tolerance, very good drought tolerance and moderate shade tolerance. MEDALLION DWARF WITH BONSAI SOD SPECIFICATIONS: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai GENERAL DESCRIPTION: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is similar to Medallion in its overall turf performance characteristics. With a superior dark green color and density, a finer textured leaf blade, a reduced growth habit that produces approximately one-third fewer clippings, and a high endophyte content, Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is a dramatic improvement over standard tall fescues. Lawns planted with Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai are more durable, darker green, and require less water, fertilizer, and mowing than bluegrass. RECOMMENDED USES: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is recommended for a wide variety of uses including residential, commercial and industrial landscapes. COMPOSITION: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is 100% Bonsai dwarf fescue. Bonsai is an extremely dwarf turf-type tall fescue-the result of over ten years of turf grass research and breeding. It is widely adaptable to California's and Nevada's varied conditions. MEASUREMENTS: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is harvested by machine to a uniform thickness of 5/8 of an inch, plus or minus 1/4 inch, plus top growth. In Southern California and Nevada, Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is harvested in folded five square foot sod pieces that are 15 inches wide by 48 inches long. In Northern California it is harvested in nine square foot rolls that are 18 inches wide by 72 inches long. SHIPPING STANDARDS: Prior to harvesting, Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is mowed uniformly to a height of between 1 1/2 to 2 inches for shipment. It is rolled/folded with the soil facing out to protect the grass from damage, and the sod is stacked on pallets. Each pallet contains approximately 500 square feet of sod. Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is shipped sufficiently dry for transportation and handling, yet moist enough to facilitate installation. It should be installed immediately after delivery. TEMPERATURE TOLERANCE: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is comparable to Medallion with a higher temperature tolerance than PennBlue. With its deep, extensive root system, Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai grows well in a wide range of temperatures with very little problem. WEAR RESISTANCE: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is more wear tolerant than PennBlue. Due to its slower growth habit, Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai will recover more slowly from traffic damage than Medallion. It is suitable for light traffic and recreational situations and exhibits fair wear recovery. SHADE TOLERANCE: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai prefers a full sun location, but will perform well in light shade situations receiving 4-5 hours of sun light per day. Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is more shade tolerant than PennBlue. COLOR Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is one of the darkest green dwarf fescues available and the color remains consistent through most of the year. However, during the winter months in areas receiving frequent heavy frosts, Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai will lose much of its color INSECT TOLERANCE: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai has a very high endophyte content that dramatically improves its resistance to turf-damaging insects, including bilibug, chinch bug, sod web worms and cut worms. TEXTURE DENSITY: Established Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai exhibits a very dense, fine textured turf that is close in appearance to PennBlue. Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai has much greater density than the common tall fescues. SMOG TOLERANCE: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai exhibits normal resistance to smog, and will suffer ill effects only if subjected to extreme smog conditions over prolonged periods of time. SALT TOLERANCE: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai has fair tolerance to saline soil conditions, and should suffer no ill effects if the soil has good drainage and was properly amended before the sod was installed. ESTABLISHMENT & MAINTENANCE WATERING: Newly planted Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai should be watered at least daily to avoid drying out, and to enable the root system to penetrate its new soil environment. Once the new sod has started to root in, watering frequency should be reduced. Due to varying soil and climate conditions, it is difficult to recommend a specific watering schedule. However, because of its deep and extensive root system, a twice-a-week deep watering is generally considered adequate for most summer weather situations. Extremely hot desert locations may require more water during the summer months. MOWING: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai should be mowed regularly with either a reel or rotary mower. It should be mowed no lower than 1 1/2 to 2 inches, depending upon the season, location or individual preference. Avoid removing more than one-third of the top-growth at any one mowing. FERTILIZATION: Due to its inherently dark green color, Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai will require less nitrogen than most other tall fescue lawns. During the spring, summer, and fall, fertilizer should be applied every 6 to 8 weeks using 1/2 to 3/4 pound of nitrogen for each 1,000 square feet of lawn. A complete fertilizer containing phosphorous and potassium should be applied at least once during both the spring and fall. During the hot summer months, fertilizer rates should be reduced. WEED, INSECT,AND DISEASE CONTROL: Medallion Dwarf with Bonsai is virtually free of weeds, damaging insects and disease when it is delivered. However, in some lawn installations, weed and insect infestations may occur from close proximity to neighboring lawns which have these problems. Various maintenance practices may be used to reduce these problems. If chemical controls are required, they should be used in accordance with the written instructions provided by the manufacturer. |
#17
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Fescue in Mid-South GA?
On Thu, 12 Jun 2003 12:45:53 GMT, animaux
wrote: Have you ever overseeded with it? Many here overseed bermuda with fescue rather than rye grass. Fescues are more persistent but not enough to compete with any bermuda cultivars. |
#19
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Fescue in Mid-South GA?
(Mike Lyle) wrote in message . com...
(brianb) wrote in message om... [...] I plan to kill the whole lawn (most of which is weeds), then roto-till it under, mix in about 10 yards of topsoil, and some "loam" or something, then rake it flat and plant seeds. I'll put down fertilizer with a 1-1-1 ratio before hand. [...] Thanks for any advice whatsoever. Hope you don't mind me butting in, new to the group and on the other side of the Atlantic; but this fascinates me. I like a gardening challenge up to a point, but I wonder if you actually *need* a lawn in an area which doesn't seem to want to grow one? If you don't need it for a play area or something like that, it seems a bit like insisting on acid-loving plants in a limestone garden. (I'm not being cheeky, just interested: your garden is your garden, which is what it's all about.) My only problem with grass is stopping it, as I live in Wales, with about 30+ inches of rain reasonably spread through the year, and few severe frosts. I've planted wild flowers plus a few naturalized non-natives for variety on part of my biggest lawn (also about 2000 sq ft), and the need for family games is the only thing stopping me making the whole thing into a flower meadow. I bet half your weeds would cost 3 pounds each or more at nurseries here, or have me green with envy that I couldn't grow them! The trick with the meadow approach is to make it look both natural and as though you meant it to happen, not just neglected. Ignoring things like paving and Zen-type pebbles, I could even visualize lovely winding walks (OK, short walks, I know!) through groups of some of your smaller beautiful American trees and shrubs with local native grasses and flowers in between. The varying aspects created could give homes to some beauties, and the birds would love it. Perhaps you have a pond already. But back to grass: I know zip about your conditions, but it sounds to me as though the problem is moisture-retention in the soil as much as lack of rainfall at key periods, so I'm with you about loam if it's good and rich, not very sandy. I wonder if it's practicable to work in a lot of absorbent peaty material? Or maybe your hot weather is *so* hot that it wouldn't make any difference. In which case surely the Highways Dept could tell you where they get their tough roadside mixture? Mike. Well my biggest problem is probably shade. That and the fact that the first grass planted on my yard was Bermuda, which is a good grower in sun, but not in shade. I live back in the woods, so there's a lot of shade. There are grasses (fescue for example) that like some shade...but they're more cool weather than middle Georgia. That's the problem. The soil is clay. It is very non-porous. So if I mix something in, it'll be manure and sand probably. What would I do with the clay that the mixture displaces? hmmm...not sure. It's somewhat acidic too. It's hard to sell a house when the yard looks like hell here. A nice lawn makes the whole thing look neat and tidy and beautiful. A haggard mess of a lawn is just depressing. I'd be up for some ground cover that looked nice and prevented erosion, but I have a hard time getting any landscaper to even call me back. I did have a bunch of mondo grass in front, but I ripped it out. That would have been OK for the slope in front of my house. |
#20
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Fescue in Mid-South GA?
On Thu, 12 Jun 2003 05:55:40 -0700, Tom Jaszewski
wrote: On Thu, 12 Jun 2003 12:45:53 GMT, animaux wrote: Have you ever overseeded with it? Many here overseed bermuda with fescue rather than rye grass. Fescues are more persistent but not enough to compete with any bermuda cultivars. Maybe I will try it in the back where bermuda has over taken the St. Augustine. Either way, it's nice to know of something other than the two turf grasses most of us southwest/midsection have to grow. |
#21
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Fescue in Mid-South GA?
Tom Jaszewski wrote in message . ..
On 11 Jun 2003 22:47:55 -0700, (brianb) wrote: It seems much of the information posted here is from the realm of "I've heard". Perhaps the gentleman or lady from Georgia should have this discussion with their local extension service. Tall fescue, Festuca arundinacea, is generally not recommended south of Atlanta. A little more searching and you'll find that some species of fescue are considered invasive weeds in Georgia Warm nights are not likely the problem unless they are also very wet. More likely that it's all but impossible to control turf grass diseases when hot and humid. In the desert SW we often have a month or more of 90F+ nights and days to 115. Some fescue does well in full sun. Our humidity occasionally gets up to 35% and that is precisely when the chemical based lawn managers have high disease problems. I did call the extension service. They said the cutoff for tall fescue is right around these parts. They said the shade might help it. I'm not sure I asked him to keep it alive in the summer. Humid nights might be the problem, then. Not sure. Not much I can grow down here in the shade if fescue won't work. |
#22
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Fescue in Mid-South GA?
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#23
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Fescue in Mid-South GA?
I was just going to suggest mondo grass. Also liriope.
Those are mainstays in north Florida for fairly dense shade under live oaks, etc. Pachysandra will also grow there, but it is slow to get started. If the slope is not TOO steep, you could thickly mulch the area and plant a row of boxwood, or low growing azaleas to define the area - and make it look intentional instead of accidental....... I don't think mondo grass or liriope is that hard to get started. If you can get a good deal on them, you could plant individal sprigs about 1 foot apart and cover a very large area that way. It would take them a year or so to fill in, but the effect would be very neat and tidy after that. They are pretty effective at keeping weeds, etc out. Clean out in the late fall would be important - and I think some people mow theirs in the early spring to stimulate nice new growth. It's hard to sell a house when the yard looks like hell here. A nice lawn makes the whole thing look neat and tidy and beautiful. A haggard mess of a lawn is just depressing. I'd be up for some ground cover that looked nice and prevented erosion, but I have a hard time getting any landscaper to even call me back. I did have a bunch of mondo grass in front, but I ripped it out. That would have been OK for the slope in front of my house. |
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