I planted grass around the beginning of sept. It was a new plant from scratch. The slicer/seeder I rented did not work properly. It did not lay seed the way it was supposed to. I have rows of reasonably thick grass and rows of thin grass. My local nursery told me to rake and place seed in the rows that are more thin. Will it work if I go through with the seeder and put seed down or is the raking aspect necessary? I have no problem watering as much as necessary, I just don't understand how the raking is all that necessary. I question this because I was told when you overseed you aerate and then seed.. But the aerators appear to more-so poke holes in the ground vs digging it up. And very small amounts of seed would obviously land in those holes. So you would either be wasting a lot of seed or the holes are only somewhat beneficial. Please advise.
Fall grass Planting ?
- Thread starter Cobrasvt43
- Start date
Well from what i know is you would more so want to seed the thinner areas, if you use a properly working seeder and re-seed your yard over the areas that got overseeded would be useless and could actually be bad for your grass since the seedlings would be competing for soil and wouldnt develop roots deep enough to survive the frost/grow. Id take your nurseries advice, or get a smaller hand spreader and try to localize it in the thin areas only.
I would use a hand held seeder vs. raking personally, I tried raking before it was very tedious and time consuming. Aeriating allows fertilizer/soil nutrients to hit the roots faster is primary purpose for using that. It can be used to seed as well though I guess, anything that can break up the dirt. All of this is based on what I've read and done myself only, I don't consider myself an expert by any means FYI.
I used a core aerator about three weeks ago and everything is coming up great. As far as that being a waste I disagree. The first rain will wash the seed right into the hole. This is what I am seeing and damn near every hole has new grass coming up through it now. As for spreading the seed I just use a walk behind spreader. If you have some areas that you need to address specifically then you can just toss the seed over the dirt once you break it up a bit. However, you are north of me and you are running, if not ran out of time for the grass to root enough to survive the winter. If anything you will need to put a ton of straw down to keep it safe from frost.
You can do a spring seeding as well but it typically does not yield results as good as if you do it in the fall.
You can do a spring seeding as well but it typically does not yield results as good as if you do it in the fall.
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Get your grass seed. Wait until right before the first snow and then toss it out. When the snow falls and then melts it helps the seeds get into the soil. I always hand spread mine. I used a auto-spreader a couple of times and did not like the out come so I have always just hand spreaded/sowed. Wear gloves because if you plant the seed that has the fertilizer coated on it you sure don't want to get that stuff on your skin.
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