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Festuca rubra
Also called Creeping Fescue, Ravine Fescue
Red fescue is a cool-season perennial grass grown as a lawn, groundcover or meadow-style planting, with many subspecies and cultivars. It does best in cool, temperate climates with well-drained soil and tolerates shade better than most turfgrasses.
Festuca rubra is a species of grass known by the common name red fescue, creeping red fescue or the rush-leaf fescue. It is widespread across much of the Northern Hemisphere and can tolerate many habitats and climates. It is best adapted to well-drained soils in cool, temperate climates; it prefers shadier areas and is often planted for its shade tolerance. Wild animals browse it, but it has not been important for domestic forage due to low productivity and palatability. It is also an ornamental plant for gardens. It functions well as a hyperaccumulator plant as well, specifically accumulating arsenic in mine affected soils.
Festuca rubra, as red fescue or creeping red fescue, is cultivated as an ornamental plant for use as a turfgrass and groundcover. It can be left completely unmowed, or occasionally trimmed for a lush meadow-like look. There are many subspecies, and many cultivars have been bred for the horticulture trade.
California fescue · Spiky Fescue · Blue Fescue · Idaho fescue · Sheep fescue · Lolium pratense · Fescue · Furrowed Fescue · Fescue · Festuca incurva
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Festuca rubra by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
