Knowledgebase
Invasive Grass Species? #752397
Asked May 26, 2021, 6:23 PM EDT
Washington County Maryland
Expert Response
It is difficult to identify the grass just from these photos alone. Since you are located near farmland, you might have brome grasses or timothy grasses (among other agricultural weeds, or even possibly a type of rush) coming in. A good view of the open flowers (inflorescence) would be needed as a starting point in order to identify it. This page shows other small details we would need to look at for identification purposes.
Regardless of the species, however, management of it will be similar if you want to remove it and re-establish fescue. There are not many options for selective control of perennial weed grasses, so you will have to use a post-emergent, non-selective herbicide -- essentially that will kill all the grass and you will have to re-seed with the fescue you want. https://extension.umd.edu/resource/lawn-herbicides-weed-control
This page on our website goes into details about renovation when a lawn is more than 50% weeds. https://extension.umd.edu/resource/lawn-renovation-and-overseeding
Since you are near an agricultural area and this problem may persist from weeds blowing in, you might want to think about lawn alternatives -- other types of perennial plants you could grow at the edges/places where the lawn is most difficult to maintain.
Christa
Yes, this looks like one of the rushes. Hand pulling would be effective in areas where it is sparse.
If you have areas where it has taken over, you'll have to renovate, meaning you'll have to kill everything and then reseed with fescue, because there is no herbicide you can apply that would selectively kill only the rush. Here is how to successfully renovate (same link as previous reply): https://extension.umd.edu/resource/lawn-renovation-and-overseeding
The other option is to simply live with it. It's not a bad alternative to fescue in areas where fescue doesn't grow well because it's too wet, etc. And it blends in with fescue fairly well.
Ellen