Orchardgrass

About Orchardgrass

Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata) is a coarse perennial bunch grass that shows up in fescue lawns as lighter-green, fast-growing clumps that sit a full mow height above the rest of the yard the day after mowing. You can't miss it in a dark fescue lawn — the blade is wider, the color is a pale yellow-green, and the texture is rougher. It was planted intentionally in pastures and hay fields across Middle Tennessee for decades, so seed blows in from anywhere there's a farm fence within a mile. It also rides in on cheap contractor seed mixes that list "pasture blend" or "meadow mix" without specifying the cultivars. Control is hard because orchardgrass is a perennial grass and fescue is a perennial grass — selective herbicides that kill one without killing the other don't really exist. I don't spray orchardgrass in fescue lawns. The honest approach is physical removal: dig out each clump with a drain spade (they pull up as single bunches since they're bunch-type, not rhizomatous), fill the hole with soil, and overseed that spot with turf-type tall fescue in the fall. If you let it go, a single clump doubles in size every year and becomes visible enough that customers notice it before they notice the brown patch spots twenty feet away. The only place orchardgrass belongs is in pastures and horse paddocks, where its higher protein content actually makes it valuable. In a residential lawn, it's a weed — not because of anything inherently wrong with the plant, but because it breaks up the uniform look of fescue and competes for the nitrogen I'm applying for the fescue.

Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata) is a turf weed commonly found in lawns throughout Middle Tennessee, including Columbia, Thompson's Station, Spring Hill, and the surrounding areas. This entry is part of our Weed Identification Guide.

As lawn care and treatment specialists, we identify and treat Orchardgrass regularly when servicing properties across the region. Proper identification is the first step toward selecting the right herbicide and timing for effective control.