We live in Woodbrook, abutting the school yard. A month or so ago, whoever mowed the school grounds left several acres unmowed and erected signs saying, “Conservation Mowing.” They were letting the grass grow to somehow benefit wildlife. That’s total rubbish.
The grass they have allowed to grow is knee high fescue, which actually is a detriment to wildlife habitat. It’s the single reason that quail and other ground nesting birds in Virginia have practically disappeared. If a mouse travelled through a field of fescue, he would have to pack his own lunch.
Fescue grass makes for nice lawns. That’s because it releases an acid through its roots as a built-in herbicide which kills all other grasses and weeds. It overcrowds all other plants including beneficial weeds which provide seeds and food for wildlife. It’s so thick, an insect would need a machete to get through it.
In the new “Conservation Mowing” section, there are no flowers, no weeds, no nothing, just fescue. Deer will eat fescue if there is nothing else and horses can become seriously ill by eating it as it produces toxic chemicals.
If the school board or whoever decided to let fescue grow really wanted a Conservation Zone, they would have burned or dug up the fescue and planted native warm-season grasses which allow the formation of a fertile meadow with wildflowers and seeds and natural habitat.
Whoever decided that tall fescue was beneficial to wildlife is an idiot.