Alot depends on whether your lawn was initially sodded or seeded.

If it was seeded, I would just throw some seed down as a test case and wait
till spring. THe dead grass present will provide the nooks and crannies to
hold the seed in place to keep it from washing away. I said test case
because it is a little to late to seed a lawn now. you risk the unsprouted
seed rotting away during winter. (and attracting mice)

If it was a sod lawn, you have to grub out the peat moss layer the sod was
grown in in order to get the seed in contact with the soil. and than rough
up the soil to hold the seed.

I live in the nortthwest burbs of chicago and every summer my lawn looked
like hell because of watering restrictions. One year, I got the brillant
idea to stick a big screwdriver into all the dead spots (in the spring). Lo
and behold, it turns out that under each dead spot was a giant chunk of
asphalt. The builder had decided to "linear landfill" underneath the six
inches of top soil he put down. Some of the chunks were over 5ft across. I
left them because ,like the builder, I had no way to dispose of it once dug
up.

"Joseph Meehan" wrote in message
news
LenS wrote:
We have a lot of lawn damage from a combination of lots of hot weather
and lack of watering this summer. The lack of watering was from a
drought (we live in a suburb of Chicago) and the fact that watering
restrictions in our community plus high water costs discouraged us
from a lot of watering.

I know, I know, now instead of paying for water we're paying for
seeding the lawn. From my calculations, though, the reseeding is
cheaper.

The damage is mostly in areas that aren't shaded. Our lawn care fellow
tells us that a lot of it should come back in the spring, but we want
to reseed anyway, although we prefer to do it ourselves.

Anyway, the plan is to "dormant seed" the lawn; put down seed now, or
at least before the ground gets too hard, so it will germinate in the
spring.

Any suggestions or tips for this? We're recent homeowners and really
have no experience with this.

Thanks,

-Len

You can try it now, you are a little late so how well it will work will
depend on the weather over the next two months. I much prefer to seed in
the fall.

BTW if you would have taken just a little better care of your lawn, not
only might it have been cheaper, but it would have looked better for half
the year.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit