Three Week Fescue Seed (Festuca microstachys)

A slender, fast-growing annual grass for quick soil cover.

Almost true to its name, three week fescue can grow from seed to maturity very quickly! Germinating in late winter or spring, this annual native grass produces single stems, and sometimes sparsely branching clumps, and goes to seed (completing its entire lifecycle) before the peak of summer.

This rapid growth makes three week fescue a highly useful species under conditions where rapid soil cover is needed. For example, planted into bare ground around slower-growing perennials, three week fescue can stabilize soil and reduce spaces for weeds to establish. It can also serve as a quick, and short-lived living mulch ground cover on sites where follow-up permanent native plant establishment is planned later on.

Widespread across the West Coast and Inland West (from Western Canada southward to Mexico), three week fescue tops out at around 2-feet tall, with graceful purple-ish seed heads. Despite the short lifespan, this grass leaves behind little biomass after it dies, with the foliage quickly decomposing and reducing wildfire potential and rank thatch build-up.

Tolerant of a wide range of soil conditions, three week fescue naturally occurs in sandy and serpentine soils, as well as seasonally flooded ground, but is tolerant of a wide range of conditions.

Like various other native fescues, this grass is a likely host plant for quite a few caterpillars of various moths and butterflies, including the common ringlet (Coenonympha tullia), the sandhill skipper (Polites sabuleti), the Sonora skipper (Polites sonora), the Mardon skipper (Polites mardon), the sierra skipper (Hesperia miriamae), Lindsey’s skipper (Hesperia lindseyi), and the Nevada skipper (Hesperia nevada).

Packet Size: Approximately 1000 seeds (10 grams).