As lawn owners, it will often be necessary to over-seed our sod so that our lawns can remain in the greatest health throughout the year.
Over-seeding is a very simple process which renews lawns with fresh grass to cover bare patches, or prepares other lawns so they can remain green throughout the Winter.
Reasons For Over-Seeding Lawns No matter whether we have a warm season lawn such as St.
Augustine, or a cool season lawn like Bluegrass, many of us will often have a need to over-seed our sod.
The reasons for over-seeding are different for both warm and cool season grasses, with warm season grasses being over-seeded for Winter with a cool season grass such as Ryegrass in order to maintain a healthy Winter color.
While cool season grasses are over-seeded to repair damaged sod or to create a mixture of grass types for greatest repair and appearance abilities for the lawn.
Best Times Of The Year To Over-seed Lawns For cool season lawns, the time of year to gain the greatest possible results from over-seeding is in mid Fall.
This allows the new grass seed enough time to develop a basic root system prior to the arrival of Winter.
Once Spring arrives, the new grass seed will already be partially established and ready to flourish in the warmer weather, giving faster and better results than if the sod were over-seeded in the Spring.
Warm season lawns are also best over-seeded in mid Fall when the weather has cooled off enough for the cool season grass seed to establish itself prior to the onset of Winter.
How To Over-seed A Lawn Begin the preparation by mowing the lawn as low as it can be mown while still remaining safe from damage for the grass type.
This is followed by applying a thin bed of soil to the top of the sod, and raking it into the grass leaf.
The soil is applied to create a bed for the new seed, which also keeps the seed moist during its establishment.
The lawn seed is measured according to the seed suppliers instructions for over-seeding.
The new lawn seed is then divided into two parts, with the first half of the seed applied to the lawn while walking in one direction, and the second half of the seed applied to the sod while walking and applying in the opposite direction.
This will ensure a very even coverage of the seed.
Once the seed is applied, the lawn should have a long watering to really get the seed bedded down into the soil mix and between the leaf blades of the grass.
To establish the new seed with the greatest possible results, it is vital to ensure that the new seed is never left to dry out during its establishment.
If this happens, then the seed and new lawn can die very quickly.
The new lawn seed may require a light watering several times per day as it's developing and dependent on existing weather, using more water for warmer weather, and less water for cooler weather.
Once the new grass is fully established, normal watering routines can be resumed.
This simple and easily affordable process is now complete, and is one of the best ways to maintain any lawn in optimum health throughout the year.