This past weekend the HH and I reseeded our lawn. Let me tell you Bob, the winter sure wreaks havoc on your lawn, and with my new goal of working in the garden every day, it has had a lot of foot traffic, which in its delicate state, kind of leaves bare spots. Bare spots leave space for weeds to invade your lawn. Weeds are bad.
Reseeding will give it that thick carpet like look that all my neighbors will oooh and aaah over, and it’s pretty simple {and inexpensive}. Spring reseeding is a walk in the park–a soon to be thickly carpeted walk in the park.
First, make sure you buy a seed that is compatible with the temperature. They make seed that germinates best between 55-65 degree soil temperature for spring reseeding. You also want to be pretty certain that you will not have another hard freeze after you seed.
Next, give the lawn a quick mow. This will help remove any leaves and small sticks/twigs that could get in the way {it’s really best to do this a couple of days BEFORE you will be reseeding}.
On the day you plan to reseed, give the whole area a quick rake. It will loosen the soil a bit and make it ready to receive the seed. Using a drop spreader {you can also do it by hand, but you may not spread the seed as evenly}, cross the area you will be reseeding in a horizontal pattern, then repeat using a vertical pattern–that way, you make sure you covered the area evenly. Then, LIGHTLY rake in the seed. You can lay down a very, very thick layer of compost, soil, or peat moss over the top of the seed if you want {less than 1/4″}. Water the seed in. You don’t want to flood the place, so just give it a light watering. You will want to keep the soil moist until the grass germinates and takes hold. Then, you can move to letting the soil dry out completely between watering and using a deeper watering plan.
That’s pretty much it. Make sure you KEEP OFF of the grass while it is germinating. You wouldn’t go walking on all the little seedlings in your garden, the same principal applies to new grass. Also, resist mowing the new grass until it is at least 2″ long.
Hopefully, when it is all said and done, the grass really will be greener on the other side.
~Mavis
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butterflyweed says
Mornin’ Mavis. It looks to me like some of that lawn damage might be caused by Miss Lucy Puggle piddling on the lawn. Female dogs are tough on lawns. Since it’s so close to the patio, it looks like she runs out, does her business fast right off the concrete and then runs back when it’s cold or wet. Wild rabbits can also kill the grass in the same fashion. First the grass dies, then after a while it grows like mad and is a super deep green color. Sigh.