How to Renovate Your Lawn from Fescue to Ryegrass and Why!

Conversion to perennial rye grass is a three-step process that takes about 2 to 3 hours. The first step is to get your lawn happy and healthy. This means go ahead and apply that first fertilizer application of the season followed by an irrigation. When the grass is dry, mow it to about an inch and a half in height.

Why changeover from fescue to perennial ryegrass?

Tall fescue is the grass used in nearly 100% of the sod sold and used for home lawns in southern Nevada. Tall fescue has its advantages but a “picnic grass” it is not. If you have a lawn that stays green through the winter here in southern Nevada, you can assume your lawn grass is tall fescue.

The number one complaint by homeowners about tall fescue lawns is an “allergic reaction” to the grass. It isn’t an allergy at all. Along the outside edge of the leaves are miniscule “hooks”. These

See the tiny hooks along the leaf blade of tall fescue.

hooks scratch bare arms and legs. When perspiration comes in contact with these tiny scratches, they cause an itching sensation reminiscent of an allergy.

Perennial rye grass leaf edges contain no hooks. In fact the leaf blade is smooth on both surfaces and slightly shiny on the underside. You can call perennial ryegrass a true “picnic grass”; soft and a pleasure to sit on with shorts and a T-shirt.

Left Kentucky bluegrass, right tall fescue, center perennial ryegrass

The perennial ryegrasses Viragrow has available to you is a blend of two, high quality, heat tolerant perennial ryegrasses. This blend of perennial ryegrasses is the same blend used on golf courses in southern Nevada for 40 years.

Conversion to perennial ryegrass is easy.

Next, spray the lawn with an herbicide making sure that the entire lawn is covered. This herbicide will kill the lawn in about 10 to 14 days. One week after spraying the lawn, mow it a second time as short as possible, bagging all the clippings.

Perennial ryegrass seed can now be spread over the area as if you were applying seed for a new lawn. Follow the seeding with a light application of a high phosphorus fertilizer and topdressing. Irrigate the lawn three times a day with enough water to dampen the topdressing, fertilizer and seed. If temperatures are warm, you will see perennial ryegrass emerging at the same time the tall fescue is dying.

Viragrow made it easy for you.

Viragrow has a sprayer available for your use with enough herbicide at the right concentration to spray your lawn. Viragrow has the grass seed, fertilizer and topdressing. Come in and talk to us and we will walk you through the steps.

Viragrow Delivers!