2nd Pic

From what I can see the grass is laying down which means it needs to be cut shorter. Somewhere between 2.5 to 3 inches should work. Once it lays down and starts matting it's just a matter of time before it dies.

Thanks @ForsheeMS, Ok, I'll try cutting it a little shorter and perhaps it will rebound - I'll give that a try and continue to monitor it...I thought since it was tall fescue it would continue to grow pretty tall, but maybe I let it go too far. Again, in an effort to strengthen the new grass (letting it grow), perhaps I inadvertently hurt it. Appreciate it!

Cutting it will also help it to tiller out and thicken up. Once it begins to darken up and the individual blades get thicker and stronger you can start to cut it a little taller. With the amount of shade you have it might need to be kept a little shorter than fescue that gets full sun.

Was any of your grass listed as red fescue or creeping red fescue? Except for the dead parts, that looks very typical for red fescue when left unmowed. For the dead parts I would attribute that to too much water without any more evidence. Grass needs much less water in the shade.

Weed n Feed wasn't a great idea. If you want to take care of your lawn without worrying about anything, get on an organic program. You can't hurt it with the modern approach using grain type fertilizers.

Seeding in April was also not a great idea. You fell victim to Scott's advertising. Lucky them.

It's been a couple days. Does it look worse now than in the pictures?

It's recommended NOT to cut fescue shorter the 3" - 4" inches. Fescue evolved to lay flat like that.

I would blame the dead fescue on a spilling too much weed/feed in that area.

It's not recommended to fertilize fescue at all in fact. They say nitrogen hurts fescue far more than doing without fescue.

They recommend, it you compulsively feel the need to fertilize, to use fertilizer with potassium & phosphorus only for fescue and for that matter when plants have fruit if I remember right. It's been a while.

Who are "they," in this case? Too often I see "they" or "them" coming from Maine or someplace where they are only talking about their own situation in their neighborhood. There are some highly respected organic gurus who make this mistake all the time. They'll say you have to scalp your lawn every year after it stops growing. Well, not if you have bermuda or St Augustine. But when their southern fans read that comment, they will follow it to the letter and end up in trouble.

In the case of my comments "They" are Prairie Nursery with extensive experience in fescue lawns.

And I wouldn't recommend scalping a lawn you want to keep. That's simply a lazy way of de-thatching when you're not even likely to need de-thatching. Scalping is simply a good way to introduce weeds.

There is a guy in Texas that in the same web page that he says you don't need to de-thatch St Augustine or Bermuda recommends scalping such lawns and bagging the cuttings in the spring and aerating the lawn too.

http://www.randylemmon.com/lawns/GardenTalk_3-6-08.htm

So basically the Texas man is telling southerners with St Augustine & Bermuda you do need to de-thatch and tells you how (scalping in the early spring with a bagger).

As far as this Ohio man goes his fescue grass should not be mowed less then 3" according to the Wisconsin nursery I learned this information from. Wisconsin is like Ohio like Texas is like Florida as far as grass goes.

I listen to experts until they start recommending 24/7 chemical care and try to make lawn care more complex than child care and then I tune them out.

This post was edited by AgroCoders on Tue, Jun 17, 14 at 23:05

Hi there - thanks all for the feedback - I have kept the grass pretty high based on some advice from my neighbor - he mentioned the same thing AgroCoders stated: that the tall fescues are meant to grow pretty tall (hence the name I guess :) ) maybe 3-4 inches and can lay flat, which is sort of why I was inquiring as to why it was dying...I did cut the grass again since posting keeping it at about 3 or 4 inches.

Actually, the grass has gotten worse now too...the parts in the middle that were yellow are now pretty much dead...The grass does look like it was matted - it could have been because of the rain too. I mean the too much water theory could be true, but I would be surprised - I couldn't really control the storms and rain that rolled through for about a week straight :).

Regarding the fertilizer - yeah, that could have been some misleading information from both the seed (Pennington) and fertilizer (Scotts) manufacturers - they both stated the conditions for spreading and I followed those accurately. I actually just lightly spread on fertilizer to this newly grassed area, but perhaps I didn't give enough time from my previous fertilizer application and also I am sure the weed/feed itself didn't help. I would think all the water we got would actually help wash out the fertilizer though if that were the culprit.

I don't know if it will rebound at this point or not - even though it's dense shade I am starting to wonder if just the total lack of sun, minus a few tiny parts, is the culprit after all...Or just a perfect storm of my misconceptions of fescue (letting it get too high, getting wet, spreading an ill-advised fertilizer, and lack of sun).

Oh, and to the comment on the shade mixtures:
Dense Shade mix:
Virtue II Tall Fescue
Rebel Xtreme Tall Fescue
Razor Red Fescue
Survivor Chewings Fescue

Tall Fescue Mix:
Justice Tall Fescue
Rebel XLR Tall Fesuce
Rebel Xtreme Tall Fescue
Virtue II Tall Fescue

Note: I only spread the Dense shade mix at the bottom of the land (where there is the most dense shade) and the tall fescue mix is pretty much covering all the rest.

The grass seems to be dying right in the middle - it does run down hill, so maybe all the rain we got matted the grass -it stayed wet for several days and then just died...too many theories. Attached is a picture today - we had another storm last night, after about 2-3 days of really hot 80-90 degree weather (without rain), but I did water when it seemed dry (one day). Thanks All!

Any advice on helping it rebound? Usually light rain + sun helps, but I will be missing that whole sun component in dense shade so it could be bon voyage for my grass.

What I'm seeing are grass blades that are too young and tender to let them go to 4 inches. Add in some heavy rain with water running across it and it lays down. Newly seeded fescue needs to be cut a little shorter and slowly bring the height up as it matures and toughens up.

If it were me I would mow every two to three days once the ground is dry enough gradually bringing it down to about 2.5 inches. This probably won't save whats already matted and brown but could help with the rest. Do what you can to save as much as possible and then reseed in the fall.

So you're getting all this rain but you are still watering? This is mid June and I'm just now watering my full sun lawn in the Texas desert. We're in our second week of temps in the higher 90s. Your lawn should go 2-3 weeks after a rain at your lower heat levels (80s).

Thanks again - I'll try cutting it down a little more still...Maybe a silly question - but is there any way to get some of the matted grass to straighten/stand back up? Via raking or fan drying, etc (although there is prob nothing I can do about it at this point)?

The problem is that with the matted grass even if I do mow it most likely won't cut that grass because it is laying too flat. I am betting the week of rain we got probably matted it, I never had a chance to mow it and it died, still not completely convinced though, but I really don't know and that's why I came here. Appreciate the advice.

I probably won't try to reseed in the Fall - this was a total experiment, in part because my neighbor told me I would be a millionaire if I could get grass to grow strong in basically 100% shade - maybe my slightly competitive nature was up for the challenge - FAIL! Apparently he tried it a few years ago and it died out for him too (and he is pretty meticulous about his grass) :). Thanks!

I suspect your problem is mostly just too much shade. Lawns like yours will start to fill in nicely in the spring. But after the leaves are on the trees for a few weeks the grass starts to suffer.

There may be "dense shade grass" but there's no such thing as deep shade grass. Limbing up trees helps.

Go easy on the fertilizer. You can't push grass in the shade. I suggest considering ground cover and other shade plants. Lots of choice in shade plants, as long as the soil is moist.

{{gwi:99704}}

Sorry, just seeing these posts two years plus, but I can offer some helpful advice if anyone else has this problem and comes across this thread. I have suffered through this same problem for the past 5 years since starting to seed tall fescue in my shaded areas. This problem is completely and only caused by heavy rains. If you plant tall fescue or similar grasses, you CANNOT have any heavy rain for at least a few months after seeding. If you anticipate heavy rain, you need to cut the grass to a couple inches so it won't mat down during the heavy rain. I have lost on this deal more times than I can count. Wasted a lot of money on Pennington dense shade grass seed ( $55 / bag ). My only successes with seeding tall fescue is to luckily get in a two month window with very little to no rain and use my sprinkler system for watering. I did save my tall fescue one time by mowing it short before a heavy rain and that worked. If it's long and it rains heavily, the grass mats down, gets entangled and dies within a few days. It's such a fine, wimpy grass that it just can't stand being mated down. Once it matures after 3 to 4 months and the blades get thicker, then it is great. Getting it to that point safely is difficult and you need some luck as well. Even your lawnmower's wheels will mat it down, so make sure the ground is as dry as possible before you mow. That way you have a better chance of the tall fescue not sticking to the ground. Good luck. It works eventually, but it is NOT an easy process.