Today I finished my overseed project. Half of the front lawn was pretty much decimated by the heat and fungus over the summer. I decided to start over with tall fescue. The prior seeding was done with a hybrid kentucky/texas bluegrass that didn't really seem to handle the heat as well as they advertised. I sprayed the half that died off (the sunny area, mostly) with glyphosate once a week over a three week period to make sure all the invading weeds and the bermudagrass that had invaded from next door was completely killed off. You must be careful when doing this to use only glyphosphate. Some of the blended brands last longer and will not give you a window where you can successfully seed. The label on my bottle says I could put seed down in 1-3 days. I gave it a full week just to be safe.
Yesterday was a full week from the last spraying so I began the renovation in the back yard and worked toward the front. First, mowed it very short, then I aerated the front and back in the areas that still had viable grass growing. This basically left holes all over the lawn that would not only allow air/water/nutrients easy access to the roots of the existing grass but also is a good place for a grass seed to germinate. I used a basic
garden weasel aeration tool. You can rent powered ones from equipment rental places for $60-$100 per day but I didn't have a good way to load and unload one from my van. The manual tool is about $25 or so and has 2 plug pullers spaced about 4 inches apart. These pull out little plugs of soil and leaves a hole.
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| Lawn with plugs removed |
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| Aerator tool |
I got an early start today and I went ahead and applied some seed. I went with tall fescue, but this type claims to be rhizomatous. This means that it will spread out on its own to fill in patchy areas over time. I don't expect it to be nearly as prolific as bermuda or bluegrass, but it is cool that there's a tall fescue that is capable of it. The brand is named
Barenbrug Water Saver with RTF. I used a 25 pound bag and another 10 pound bag for this job, since I wanted to go heavy in the dead zone in my front lawn. For an overseed, the 25 pound bag would have covered 5,000 square feet, but only 2,500 for a new lawn. I had half of a new lawn in front (1,500 square feet) and overseed in the remaining 3,300 square feet of my lawn. I have a little bit left over (2-3 pounds) in case I need to do some patching afterwards.
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| Label from seed bag |
I used a
manual cultivator to break up the surface where I had killed off the grass. I got it from Lowes and it worked great for this job. It was a lot of work but it drove the seeds just below the soil surface and made the dirt loose. This should help it grow in nicely and the only thing I would have done differently would have been to rake up the dead grass first. It kept tangling up in the tines and I'd have to pull it out. On the plus side, it is providing a light covering for the seed to keep it from being visible to birds and providing some shade from the sun.
I am using a
4 outlet timer to keep the watering going. It is set to water each zone 20 mins 3 times a day. Once it starts to fill in, I will cut back to once a day, then eventually work back to once a week. Everybody says you can do everything right but the watering is the most important part. I think the timers are a fantastic way to ensure that it goes smoothly. This is how it currently looks. I will update in about a month to show the final results and provide some pictures of the progress from week-to-week.
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Day 1 overseed, I killed the grass starting at the sidewalk bend all the way to the neighbor's driveway.
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