Oklahoma, 7a
I decided to build some flower beds and plant some native wildflowers in my backyard. Tilled up the ground and then mixed the loose dirt with top soil and compost. I sowed 30+ different species of various wildflowers and then covered them with seeding straw.
Around the same time, I also laid a bunch fescue seed in bare spots in my backyard yard where shade has increased and Bermuda had died. A lot of that fescue seed got blown into my flower beds.
I originally thought this might not be bad as to give some ground cover to the flower beds and make it look fuller, but I’ve started to worry that my wildflowers might have trouble growing. Should I rip out the fescue or will it be okay?
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Depends on your goals. Fescue can cause some flowers to work competitively and keep themselves upright, but can also keep other flowers stifled. Aesthetically, the fescue in the flower beds takes away from the visual separation between yard/bed, and makes things look less intentional and more like neglect.
I sowed various seeds that will vary from 2' to 6' tall from front to back, as well as various things that will bloom from spring to fall to give a good variety. Picturing it in my head, I didn't think it would end up looking too bad aesthetically with the wildflowers towering over the Fescue and it looking like ground cover to hide the soil a bit. But if the Fescue will prevent light that the seeds need or steal water/soil from the wildflowers enough to hinder them, I'll totally yank it out.
Given the subreddit, I will give the obligatory, "fescue is not native" response. I'd weed it out now (before other stuff comes up) IF you want to keep your native plant area strictly native. If you want some grasses, you could gather some native seed heads and scatter them in. Of course, don't try to do more than you have time and energy for.
One other remark:
Miracles do happen!
Red fescue is native where I live in MA — https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/festuca/rubra/
Obviously the non-native subspecies are more common, but I think it’s a fine choice if you must have a lawn.
(edit: this does not necessarily apply to OP in Oklahoma, where I don’t think fescue is native? but I just wanted to say it’s not unilaterally nonnative to the U.S., as this sub had led me to believe!)
I'm not so much a purist as many on here are likely to be. I'm not concerned with the flower bed not being 100% native but I just didn't want the Fescue to keep the seeds that I spent quite a bit on from flourishing. I'm willing to pull it out if I need to and hope that yanking the blades out won't disrupt the wildflower seeds too much.
If this is tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum) one of the most common turf grasses, I would get rid of it. Tall fescue, unlike some other non-native grasses, is generally not a desirable host plant. Much of it has a toxic fungus living inside making it poor forage and it grows densely outcompeting other species for water and nutrients.
Consider using a grass specific herbicide or applying a general one during winter when other plants are dormant to minimize disturbance. Especially since you are establishing the flowers from seed. Fescue will likely bully them before they can get established.
That's what it is. Thank you. I'll look into seeing how much work it will be to pull those up and use an herbicide as a last option.
I've had a decent amount of trouble with turf grass impacting seed establishment (in my case I believe I have Kentucky Bluegrass - Poa pratensis - which isn't native to North America)... It's actually really annoying to get rid of without ripping it all out.
I'm not sure what species of fescue this is, but it's generally never advised to till. Tilling can bring weed seeds to the surface and leave any root material in the soil where they can re-grow (for species that produce rhizomes... and I think some fescues spread by rhizomes). If you're going to dig up the area, you should sift the soil to remove any plant and root material from the area. This is a massive soil disturbance, but digging + sifting has resulted in really good seeding rates for me when I've needed to do that for site preparation.
I needed to till because I had a lot of Bermuda grass in the areas that I built my flower beds, as well as a lot of red clay soil that is hard to grow things in so I needed to loosen a couple inches of that to mix in with topsoil and compost to improve the opportunity for the wildflowers to actually grow.
After a little bit of research, it appears that tilling alone will not suppress Bermuda Grass (per this long article on the subject from OSU):
Also, regarding amending the existing soil (adding topsoil and compost), it sounds like a lot of Oklahoma has red clay soils... There are likely many plants native to your area that are adapted to grow in the existing soils. From what I've read, adding nutrients to these soils will actually promote non-native & invasive species growth instead of the native species. A bunch of native plants actually prefer the "nutrient poor" soils you have. Soil amendment is much more important for vegetable gardening or ornamental gardening.
I had sprayed the Bermuda grass within the confines of the flower beds to kill it before tilling it up so that the soil was reachable.
That's interesting and makes a lot of sense. I wasn't sure on the specifics of all of the various species that I sowed if red clay would be suitable for all of them or not so I made it more nutrient rich in an effort to give all of them a better chance since not all of Oklahoma is red dirt clay. But the deed has already been done so I'll just have to rid the flowerbeds of the Fescue and see how they do come spring. Thanks for your information!
Always happy to help! It can be tricky to research, but there is always a native plant community that wants to grow in any and every soil type (there are some rare exceptions where soil amendment is necessary).
It's honestly one of the most different things about gardening with native plants - if you pick the right plants, you really shouldn't have to do anything to the soil before planting or seeding (or provide supplemental water after you've planted them and watered them in for the first couple weeks - additional watering may be needed during severe drought conditions).
I had put quite a bit of thought into it but perhaps not enough. I mapped out with various attributes and where they would be planted in the beds (as what is pictured is only a small section):
Oklahoma's a good spot for a native lawn because buffalo grass (Bouteloua/Buchloe dactyloides) is native there.
I have some of that in my yard and I kind of hate it because of the seed sprouts that shoot up so tall and fast compared to the grass and it looks like a bunch of weeds in my lawn. And because I hate the potential for that to spread and invade my neighbor's yard, which forces me to mow more frequently to chop those seed sprouts down.
Any spreading turf grass like fescue will try to outcompete young seedlings. It shouldn’t be as bad as bermuda, but I would still try and eliminate it now.
It’s a lot easier to address weed pressure before your good stuff comes up than when you’re trying to work around baby plants.