Author: Dianne DeLongchamps
- What is the best grass type for a Fort Collins or Northern Colorado lawn?
- Does tall fescue really save water compared to Kentucky bluegrass?
- Is Kentucky bluegrass a good grass for Colorado lawns?
- Is turf-type tall fescue a good grass for Colorado lawns?
- Should I plant buffalograss instead?
- How do I choose between fescue and Kentucky bluegrass?
- When should I seed or overseed a lawn in Northern Colorado?
- FAQ
What is the best grass type for a Fort Collins or Northern Colorado lawn?
Turf-type tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass. Those two are what we recommend and what’s growing on most of the lawns we maintain across Fort Collins, Windsor, and Timnath.
Those are the two grasses Clean Air Lawn Care builds its organic program around, and Luke looks at your soil before recommending a change. Custom organic fertilizers and organic soil builders come first, because a grass type only performs as well as the soil under it. The standards are the same either way. Never cut below 3 inches, 3.5 in July and August. Water 1 to 2 inches a week, 2 inches mid-July to mid-August, across two to three deep waterings.
Both are cool-season grasses suited to our winters, our soils, and our elevation. Before you switch anything, there’s a CSU finding you should see.
Does tall fescue really save water compared to Kentucky bluegrass?
You’ll read everywhere that turf-type tall fescue saves 20–30% on water versus Kentucky bluegrass. CSU’s own publication says otherwise, in bold:
“Switching from a KBG to a turf-type tall fescue lawn will not save water! Water savings comes in the management of the irrigation.” CSU Extension, CMG GardenNotes #412
The measured figure in the same document: “Based on ET, actual water use of turf-quality tall fescue is only 10% less than the ET for KBG.” CSU’s seasonal totals put turf-quality bluegrass at 34 inches and turf-quality tall fescue at 31.
CSU also warns that fescue “cannot slow growth and water use as the soil dries down,” so “actual water use may be significantly higher than KBG” under stress.
The Front Range caveat matters even more. CSU PlantTalk 1519: “In well-drained soils, tall fescue requires less irrigation, because roots develop deeply.” But along much of Colorado’s Front Range, soils “may be shallow, gravelly or consist of heavy clays that drain poorly and have low porosity” and in those soils tall fescue “may actually require as much or more water than bluegrass.”
The savings live in the irrigation, not the seed bag. One more correction: Denver Water doesn’t push fescue either. Its water-wise grass seed mix is “Sundancer buffalograss and Alma blue grama.”
Is Kentucky bluegrass a good grass for Colorado lawns?
CSU PlantTalk 1521 calls it “the most widely used lawn grass in Colorado,” and most established lawns in our service area are already growing it.
CSU classifies bluegrass as “sod-forming (has underground rhizomes)” with “high recuperative potential.” Rhizomes are underground stems, not roots. They let bluegrass fill in thin spots on its own, without you reseeding. That matters on a lawn kids and dogs actually use.
Water: CSU 7.202 notes a high-quality bluegrass lawn “may need up to 2.25 inches of water per week under hot, dry, windy summer conditions.” That’s a ceiling under three stacked conditions, not a weekly target.
Shade: CSU rates bluegrass shade tolerance as “poor to fair.”
Is turf-type tall fescue a good grass for Colorado lawns?
Deeper roots, and CSU rates it as the one that “does well in shade”. The only one of the three that gets that rating.
Two practical notes from PlantTalk 1519: fescue “may need to be mowed more frequently and mower blades require more frequent sharpening.”
It’s a bunch-type grass, growing in clumps rather than spreading by rhizomes. Thin or worn spots need reseeding.
Should I plant buffalograss instead?
A Colorado native warm-season grass, and the real water saver of the three. CSU: buffalograss “requires 50% less rain and irrigation per season than KBG,” needing “a minimum of one-two inches of rainfall or irrigation every two-four weeks during the summer.”
It isn’t what we work with, and we wouldn’t put it in a family backyard. CSU’s limits explain why:
- “It breaks dormancy in mid- to late spring, well after bluegrass and fescue lawns become green. It turns brown and dormant with the first hard frost in the fall.” Shorter green season on both ends.
- Won’t work where traffic is “BOTH concentrated and constant.”
- Needs “at least a half day of full sun”; unsuited to “moderate to very shady locations.”
For a sunny, low-traffic area you mostly look at, it’s a genuinely water-wise choice.
How do I choose between fescue and Kentucky bluegrass?
- How the lawn gets used. Heavy traffic favors bluegrass, CSU’s “high recuperative potential” is doing real work there. Fescue needs you to overseed worn spots.
- Shade. Fescue, clearly. CSU rates bluegrass poor-to-fair.
- Your soil. Well-drained soil is where fescue’s deeper roots pay off. Shallow or gravelly soil erases the advantage, per PlantTalk 1519.
- What’s already there. Overseeding into an existing lawn usually beats starting over.
Can you mix them? Plenty of local lawns are bluegrass-fescue blends and we see them work. That’s our observation, CSU doesn’t publish a recommendation on blends either way.
When should I seed or overseed a lawn in Northern Colorado?
CSU 7.241 is specific: “Seed cool-season grasses (bluegrass, ryegrass, fescues) anytime from March through September.” And: “Along the Front Range and Western Slope the optimal time is mid-August to mid-September.”
That’s a four-week window, and it’s the highest-leverage month on the Northern Colorado lawn calendar.
For tall fescue specifically, PlantTalk 1519 gives “late August through September or late April through early June.”
Luke and I get this question constantly from people who’ve moved here from lower, wetter places and find their old lawn knowledge doesn’t translate. The honest answer for Northern Colorado is fescue and Kentucky bluegrass, and the honest answer on water is that the savings come from how you irrigate, not which of the two you plant. If you’re weighing an overseed, we’re glad to walk it with you.
Clean Air Lawn Care Northern Colorado is owned by Dianne, Paul, and Luke DeLongchamps — a family business serving Fort Collins, Windsor, and Timnath with organic lawn treatments and solar-powered electric equipment.
