By Sam Bauer
There has recently been much discussion regarding the potential of no-mow grasses for use in home lawn settings. That brings the question, “exactly what are no-mow grasses?” Seed mixtures labeled as no-mow generally contain at least three species of fine fescues. In the fine fescue category, there are several species options available: chewings fescue, hard fescue, blue hard fescue, sheeps fescue, slender creeping red fescue, and strong creeping red fescue. Generally all of these species have similar characteristics, although some will perform better than others in particular situations. For example: slender creeping red fescues have performed very well in environments with higher salinity, compared to the other fine fescues.
No-mow mixtures generally contain lower quality and/or slower growing varieties of fine fescues. Will they tolerate mowing? The simple answer is: yes. We can find many of the same species and varieties in our general turfgrass mixtures.