I have been trying to establish a thick stand of TTTF in my front yard, after adding soil amendments,for a couple of years now. One thing I have noticed is (in the areas that are well established) that there always seems to be a lot of dead blades mixed in with the green about this time of year. Is this usual with this type of grass? Also, it seems that it tends to be thin & difficult to keep going in certain areas of the lawn. I would like to use corn gluten meal to control weeds (I have a particular problem with violets and nutsedge) but don't because I have to keep reseeding those areas. Is this also typical? Are there certain conditions that it just can't take? It gets late afternoon shade. I've been buying the Pennington seed from a big box store. It always looks wonderful in the spring!

Thank you very much for your inquiry. Tall fescue can be a wonderful lawn grass, especially in the transition zone. There could be several problems going on here that are promoting your issues. First, keep the mowing height at 3-4 inches and mow every 5-6 days. Second, fertilize with a turf specific fertilizers, 4-5 times per year, with a target of 4 lbs N/1000 ft2/year (this can decrease after a couple of years once the turf is mature). Make sure you always put down starter fertilizer with the seed.

The corn gluten meal for weed control is not effective on many broadleaf weeds. For this, use triclopyr. You can knock the weed back now, but target early October as well for an application.

Again, thanks for the question and let me know if you have more.

Respectfully

Trey Rogers, The Briggs & Stratton Yard Doctor, YardDoctor.com