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The fine fescue in my lawn from last fall's overseeding is all dead this year because of the summer heat. The ryegrass and bluegrass are thriving. Will be avoiding fine fescue in the future. I've realized that my lawn is mostly sunny, not sun and shade.
I've always had problems with grass seeds in general even with water timers running at 5 a.m. Then I tried the newspaper and burlap method I saw a neighbour using.
LMGTFY.runnersgambit wrote: ↑ Can you tell us how to seed properly... newbie house owner here
I guess Awesome and Tough are the better quality ones.
1) Depending on how serious you are, get a soil test. It can tell you a lot about what things are imbalanced in your soil and fixing these will make growing grass much easierrunnersgambit wrote: ↑ Can you tell us how to seed properly... newbie house owner here
A little too early for that. We're pretty much in the middle of the high heat season. Doing all that right now might severely overstress the lawn. I would wait until it's closer to middle to late August.
You're probably right.. Next week looks warm with rain in my area almost every day though and I have a good irrigation system / small area of lawn to recover. I've also got a mobile sprinkler on a timer that I can use to supplement the regular watering schedule if need be. I did manage to successfully re-grow half of my backyard after tilling the area (after scuffing it up here and there to install an irrigation system in my backyard).
Leafsfan34 wrote: ↑ 1) Depending on how serious you are, get a soil test. It can tell you a lot about what things are imbalanced in your soil and fixing these will make growing grass much easier
2) Wait until fall to reseed. People waste a ton of money on reseeding in the spring and wonder why it didn't work... Well here we plant cool-season grasses and these do much better with a longer run-way to grow roots in the fall. Planting in the spring means the seed doesn't have much time to grow robust root systems before getting wiped out by summer heat. Early - mid September is a good time to reseed here in SW Ontario, but adjust according to your geography/weather.
3) That means now is a good time to do your best to kill your current weeds and prep your lawn for a reseed. Most of the weed killer here in Canada is garbage and won't do much. There are ways to get your hands on good stuff from the US (e.g. Seed ranch delivers to Canada) but there are obvious ethical, environmental, and personal health implications to these products that I'm not going to get into. Weed B Gone might be your best option for legal stuff here in Canada.
4) The other thing you can get done in the late summer/early fall before your reseed is dethatching. This is the process of pulling all the dead shit out of your grass that can't prevent water and nutrients from getting to your soil/seed. There are electric or gas powered dethatchers. If you have a big lawn, well worth it to buy, rent one, or hire someone to do this for you. If you have a small lawn, you can buy a thatch rake. It's important you get a thatch rake as a normal rake won't do **** all. Just be warned that this is physically difficult and will give you some callused hands by the end.
5) The other thing you can consider is aerating. Contrary to popular belief, it's not good to do this every year. Do the screwdriver test - if you can easily sink a flat-head into your soil, you don't need to aerate. If this is difficult to do, try again after a light water. If it's still difficult to do, then aerating will be beneficial
6) As you can tell, the prep is almost as much if not more work than the seeding. Next step, mow your lawn low. This is one of the only times you SHOULD mow low. Cutting your grass down low is going to give your seeds more time to receive sunlight and water. You'll also want to bag your clippings here. This step should be done before aerating obviously
7) Next you'll likely want to put down a SMALL layer of top dressing - this is organic matter that is going to provide nutrients to your soil. More is not better.
8) I then put down some starter fertilizer. Usually this type of fertilizer has a high in phosphorus content which is going to encourage good root growth vs. high nitrogen content which you might use in the spring. Go to your local nursery... I find their products are way better and sometimes even cheaper than the hardware store crap (e.g. Scotts). Again, more is not better. Read the bag and do that math to know how much to lay down for your lawn area.
9) Seed - Do your research on what type of seed to buy and I'd encourage you to go to your local nursery to purchase. I bought some high end Rhizomatous Tall Fescue from my local nursery and it is awesome. It doesn't spread laterally as much as other grass seeds so it may be more patchy your first season you seed, but it grows deep as hell meaning that it's hardy, doesn't get overrun by weeds as much, and can tolerate drought better than other grass. You're going to want to buy a good broadcast spreader to lay your seed down. Hand held ones are not really good especially for large areas. Getting a good push one will make your life easier and ensure good/even spread. Once you've done the math on how much seed to spread based on your area, evenly spread the seed on top of the top dressing you put down.
10) After your seed is on your top dressing, gently rake it into the soil. It's totally ok if some seeds are on top still. In fact, some people even suggest not raking and leaving on top. The issue is that it may make for some very expensive bird seed. What I did last fall and had good success with was putting down 75% of my seed, raking it in, and then recasting the last 25% on top.
11) Ok, now you have top dressing, fert, and seed down. Next step: Watering
This step is where most people **** up and blame the failure on the seed. A successful overseed or reseed requires very frequent, light watering. If you have an irrigation system this will be a piece of cake. If you have a manual sprinkler, it can be a daunting task. New seed requires light watering 3-4 times a day for about 1-2 weeks, then you can scale back and start to water for longer and less frequent. It will seem absurd how much you're watering, but all of your hardwork and money is going to go down the drain (no pun intended) if you let the seedlings dry up in their infancy.
Again, there is too much of a good thing. You don't want puddles forming.
12) Monitor your growth. If you seed early enough in the fall you may even have a little more time to hit areas that didn't get much growth with seed and fill in any patches. Once your new grass has grown to 2-3 inches then hit it with the lawn mower with sharp blades. Keep mowing 1-2/times a week for the remainder of the fall.
13) Last thing I will say is that you should judge your success by next spring. It will still likely look patchy and thin in the fall although it will look a hell of a lot better than when you started. Once the spring hits, the new growth will come in much thicker and more lush if you did things properly. Then you can do all of your spring lawn care to ensure you have a kick ass summer lawn.
Hope that helps lol
Like someone else stated, almost every brand of seed has low reviews. Even on costco etc. It's because most don't know how to adequately use the product and then give a low review.
You should be buying grass seed based on your house, lawn, sun, shade, temperature more than any random review on canadian tire. If you're in the southern tip of Ontario, what good is a review from someone in BC or Alberta which has completely different weather or growing conditions?
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