Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Range evidence records Festuca trachyphylla in native and introduced contexts. That distribution distinction is geographic context, separate from the fire-source language.
A 2006 guide prints “low” in its fire-hazard column for Fescue, sheep, while calling the rating a rough estimate rather than a scientific-trial result. Its footnote says browning plants often become high hazards and directs readers to mow grasses and forbs as browning begins.
Nevada Division of Forestry and University of Nevada Cooperative Extension publish Bulletin 06-01 for the Lake Tahoe Basin and vicinity. FireApproved publishes 83 exact rated owners as basin context across Nevada and California. Rough estimates are not statewide or site ratings.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AL, CA, CT, DC, GA, IA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in CO.
Introduced / established
37 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 3a; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 23030, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity: Fire Hazard column: low [tahoe-guide-2006] (with its recommendation)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
“low — Fescue, sheep — Festuca trachyphylla [formerly F. ovina]”
Table 1's Fire Hazard column prints “low” for this taxon. The guide calls the rating a rough estimate of potential flammability, not a result of scientific trials. Its footnote says plants that turn brown often become high fire hazards and tells readers to mow grasses and forbs when they begin to turn brown.
