new seeding - what is this?

12 years ago

In October my husband killed our mostly weed, spread topsoil, aerated and seeded w/ "Tenacity" fescue.

Within about 10 days sprigs came up that we assumed were the fescue.

About 5 - 7 days later, much finer sprigs came up that my husband believed are the fescue and feels the original bigger/taller sprigs are weeds of some sort, but both are very evenly distributed and prevalent throughout the yard.

The finer stuff looks too delicate to endure any kind of normal lawn use/foot-traffic, and the more substantial stuff grows too tall and fast to manage and just doesn't really look like grass. It has not sprouted seedheads that weÃ¢ÂÂve seen, but it grows tall enough that it bows over.

It's now January and he is still has to mow, because it grows fast and tall. He hates the way it looks, whatever it is.

I am attaching photos of a comparison of the single sprigs w/ the larger sprig on the left and the finer sprig on the right, along w/ a couple of photos of the yard.

Any idea what is going on?

Comments (6)

grasshole
12 years ago
"In October my husband killed our mostly weed, spread topsoil, aerated and seeded w/ "Tenacity" fescue and covered with straw."

I fixed the quote. There's the problem.

The straw should die off in the summer. I don't know if there is anything to kill it, or if you'll just have to keep it mowed down to protect the fescue from being shaded out. Next time skip the straw. It doesn't do that much.
dchall_san_antonio
12 years ago
And next time skip the topsoil. I'm not sure where the original person is who started recommending top dressing with soil or sand but he should rot in heck! There is almost never a good reason to add more topsoil/sand to a perfectly good garden. In your case you brought in new weed seeds and might possibly have changed your soil profile enough to reverse the flow of rainwater drainage. Just say "No!" to top dressing with permanent materials.

These hellstrips started out as even with the sidewalks. Over the years the owner added a 1/8 inch of top dressing every year. The result is a mound that they have to use metal stripping to keep from washing out.

{{gwi:78979}}

I'm not sure what the area in the background originally looked like, but the drainage is way off from top dressing.
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oneam9
Original Author
12 years ago
ok, thanks, guys!
dchall_san_antonio
12 years ago
Not sure what happened to my picture. How do you get a typo when you copy and paste??? Preview looked okay.

Here's a reload

{{gwi:78979}}
dchall_san_antonio
12 years ago
Maybe you can't have parentheses in the name...duh...

{{gwi:78981}}
oneam9
Original Author
12 years ago
Hi,

I am resurrecting this thread as here we are in spring and this weed is thriving more than ever.

In addition, there are more weeds coming in.

DH didn't want to use pre-emergent in winter for concern it would impact a spring overseeding. Now spring is here and he doesn't want to overseed anyway because of the proliferation of this weed.

So, we have the straw weeds, which kept him mowing the lawn all winter, and now some of the other native weeds popping up as well.

We don't want to have to kill the entire lawn again and start over in the fall.

What can we do now? What products can we use now to help eliminate the weeds and save the fescue?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!