Fescue is dark green in colour with a medium width leaf and is dense in appearance. It is a non-spreading, non-thatching turf. This is because it is a single seeded system lawn, i.e. one seed - one blade of grass. This makes it an upright growing turf, a non-spreading lawn. As it is non-spreading, it is not self-repairing. This means should damage occur to the lawn you would need to over sow or patch the area with seed or instant turf. Therefore it would not be suitable in a very high traffic area or where dogs are continually urinating and burning patches. Fescue is used extensively by the Burswood Golf Course to surround their greens.

Fescue has been developed for Australian conditions with the purpose of providing people with an attractive, evergreen lawn. It is "winter active", so it can be laid 12 months of the year. It has an extensive deep root system that it can put down to a depth of around 1.2 metres plus, which enables it to extract water and nutrients from larger volumes of soil, thus promoting one of the most drought tolerant, low maintenance evergreen lawns available. However, it does requires more water in hot periods than warm season grasses such as Couches and Kikuyu.

Fescue contains a naturally occurring friendly fungus known as Endophyte that repels a host of turf insects. It is easy to mow, non-invasive (will not run into garden beds), non-thatching, drought and cold tolerant. Fescue will grow in a wide range of soils and climatic conditions, i.e. clay-sandy soil, hot-cold conditions. Additionally, Fescue requires less fertilising because of its extensive root system, which utilises mineral nutrients and available soil moisture better than many other grass varieties.

Fescue is used a lot where display is the main focus and it will grow in acid to alkaline soils from full sun to 85% shade. It is a good tough play lawn and is recommended for a wide variety of uses, including residential and commercial landscapes, parks and recreation areas.

•  Low irritant
  
•  Non invasive
  
•  Low maintenance
  
•  Low thatching
  
•  Excellent shade tolerance
  
•  Low wear, recuperative and green-up rate
  
•  Excellent winter colour retention
  
•  Excellent disease and pest resistance
  
•  Requires minimum 2-4 hours direct sunlight daily
  
•  Propagated from stolons (runners) or turf rolls

MAINTENANCE
Fescue should ideally be mown every 10-14 days at a height of approx. 50mm during summer, this helps to shade the lawn and conserve moisture. In winter drop the mower to approximately 40mm; this will let the light and warmth into the lawn.

USES
Residential and commercial lawns for those shady areas where other lawns just won't grow. Golf course surrounds and roughs.

Bent grass is primarily used by golf courses as putting surfaces. An extremely fine leaf allows bent to be mown at low heights producing an ideal putting surface.

West Coast Turf grows 95% of the bent grass on contract for various golf courses in Perth. Previous projects include green replacements at Burswood Golf Course, Lake Claremont Golf Course, and Point Walter Golf Course.

Sales of bent for domestic use is limited by availability however for a golfing and gardening enthusiast bent grass will provide excellent display lawn that allows you to fine tune your putting for that sub-par round.

West Coast Turf is currently cultivating crops of Jacklin's L-93 Creeping Bent Grass.

For more information see http://www.jacklin.com