One of the largely overlooked procedures for a great looking lawn is the need to overseed your lawn, Commonly the public believes fertilizer is sufficient to keep their lawn thick and free of weeds.
Top 3 Reasons to Overseed Your Lawn
Overseeding to reduce weeds is one of the easiest and most natural ways to reduce weeds in your lawn. Grass seeds germinate and grow earlier than most of the weeds do in the spring. If you overseed your lawn in the fall the new grass will crowd out most of the weeds attempting to grow in your lawn. This means that you no longer need to worry about pre-emergent weed killers or other weed removal methods. Simply apply a new layer of grass seed in the fall and spring will find you with a fuller, greener, weed free lawn.
Overseeding your lawn to reduce thin spots:
Seeding your lawn in the spring or fall can help to fill in any areas where the grass is thin. If you fertilize your lawn and apply a plant food such as Soil Booster Blend a week before you overseed it will allow time for the soil to absorb the nutrients without burning the new grass as it emerges. Some people recommend overseeding in the fall as this also reduces the weeds in your lawn, but it is just as effective if you overseed in the spring. Plus you get to enjoy the fuller, thicker lawn immediately instead of having to wait for spring to see the result. Just be sure to allow grass to remain at least 3 inches long after mowing, this allows the new grass to develop a nice deep root systems that will ensure healthy grass for years to come.
Seeding your lawn to fill in bare patches can be done in two ways. Some people prefer to overseed only the area where bare patches have occurred. Other people see this as a good time to go over the whole yard with a new layer of seed. Either method can benefit your lawn. If the rest of your lawn is full and weed free then you may want to consider just filling in the bare area with a patch kit like, Lawn Patch Repair Kit. However, if you have noticed a general thinning of your lawn in general you may want to overseed the whole lawn.
Just like other matter, grass gets worn out. It needs to be rejuvenated every few years to make up for the natural deceleration of the turf’s reproduction process. Overseeding is not complicated and the payback outweighs the investment of time required to achieve a lush thick lawn.
Overseeding your lawn adds an additional great benefit. The modern varieties of seed you can acquire now, are more disease tolerant than the grass you already maintain,
An ideal lawn ought to be like fresh sod. If you look at newly laid sod, you may have noticed when you pull the grass blades apart you have difficulty visualizing the soil. This is how your lawn should look. If you look and you can see the soil without difficulty or maybe you can notice it from the deck, you need to overseed your lawn.
Check out this post on lawn soil preparation to learn what to do before overseeding
Follow these simple steps for a thick lush lawn:
- Choose the correct season to overseed. Early fall while the air is cool and the soil is still temperate, is optimal for overseeding.
- Purchase quality grass seed. Seed which is less than 1/2 percent of weed seeds.
- For the Northern climates: Kentucky Blue Grass, or Fescue.
- Southern Climates: St. Augustine, Zoysia, or Bermuda Grass.
- Scalp the existing lawn. Set your mower to the lowest setting and mow the lawn to 1/2 inch or shorter to make sure you get the best possible seed to soil connection.
- Now you need to thatch the lawn of all grass clippings from mowing. Grass seed germinates when it is in contact with the soil, make sure you rake all of the clippings.
- Aerate the lawn, either yourself or hire someone to do it, as that allows the seed to work itself deeper into the soil.
- The largely imperative part of an overseed lawn is the watering. Once you start the watering process the seed needs to stay wet for the following 2 weeks. The area will possibly need to be watered twice daily for the seed to fully germinate. If the seed dries you could lose up to 30 percent germination.