Overseed Lawn Advantages: More Grass, Less Weeds, Sounds Like A Plan.
One of the most overlooked procedures but one of the most needed is to Overseed Your Lawn.Most people assume that fertilizer is all that is needed to keep the turf thick and weed free. Just like every other living plant, grass gets tired. It needs to be revitalized every few years to compensate for the natural slow down of turf’s reproduction process. Overseeding is not difficult… and the benefits outweigh the time investment needed for a full thick lawn.
Overseeding your lawn adds another big benefit. The new varieties of grass seed that you will get today are more disease resistant than the grass you already have.
An ideal lawn should be like new sod. If you have ever looked at freshly laid sod, maybe you noticed that if you pull the grass blades apart you had a hard time seeing the soil. This is what you should be looking for in your lawn. If you look at your yard and you can find the soil easily or maybe you can just see it from the patio, then you need to overseed your lawn.
Follow these easy steps to a thick weed free lawn:
Step-1 – Choose the right time to overseed. Early fall, when the air temperature is cool and the soil temperature is still warm, is the best time to overseed.
Step-2 – Purchase quality grass seed. Look for seed that has no more than 1/2 percent of weed seeds. Good for the Northern climates: Kentucky bluegrass or Fescue. Southern climates: St. Augustine, Zoysia or Bermuda grass.
Step-3 – Scalp the existing lawn. You must set your lawn mower on the lowest setting and cut the lawn to ½ inch or shorter to ensure good seed to soil contact.
Step-4 – Now you need to De- Thatch the Lawn of all the cut grass from the mowing. Grass seed only germinates if it is in direct contact with the soil, so make sure to rake it thoroughly.
Step-5 – Rent an aerator or hire someone to aerate the lawn, especially if the soil is heavy.
Step-6 – The most important part of an overseed lawn is the watering. Once you start the watering process the lawn seed needs to stay wet for the next 2 weeks. The area may need to be watered twice a day so that the lawn seed can come to full germination. If the seed dries out you may lose up to 30 percent germination.
You can buy a product called Grass Fast that will help the over seeded area from drying out. It is available at Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and Costco. It allows light, air, and water to penetrate, but it keeps the seed from drying out and improves the germination rate. Leave it on for two or three weeks, then remove it and store it for next year.
Step-7 – Once the old grass reaches about three inches high you will need to mow it like you have been doing over the summer.
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