How to get rid of clumping fescue in your lawn
Clumping fescue grows faster and taller than the surrounding turf, creating an unsightly, uneven lawn that requires endless spot weeding. When these thick patches take over, homeowners are forced to decide whether to constantly battle the clumps by hand or completely kill off the yard to start over.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Spot weeding the clumps
- 2Waiting until next year to start the nuking process in late spring
- 3Overseeding instead of a full nuke
- 4Lightly running the back of a rake over the surface to redistribute the seeds
- 5Leaving the clustered seeds as they are, relying on the belief that over-seeding is fine
- 6Pulling it by hand
- 7Digging it up completely
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“If you miss turning the handle, seeds pool at the wheel putting to much seeds when you resume turning.”source ↗
“Is it too late to Nuke my lawn?”source ↗
“My issue is I have a massive clumped fescue problem.”source ↗
“What is it and how to kill it?”source ↗
“What would you do? Should I just keep spot weeding the clumps?”source ↗
“I mainly just hate it growing longer over my patio than everything else.”source ↗
“Pull it or dig it, but get every bit of the root or it'll be back next week.”source ↗