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

Never heard of this technique. Why not just seed in the spring if you think
it is too late this season for germination? My guess is that a large
portion of whatever seed you sew this fall will wash away, get eaten, or rot
before growing season next year. Instead of a 90% germination rate, I think
you'll be looking at far less.

KB


"LenS" wrote in message
...
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

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

Why not water it and see if it cames back now, you risk a few things in
Chgo now, Rain could wash it away before spring, birds will eat it, and
if we get a frost within 10 days it will be dormant anyway. The ground
temp must be apx 55 for seed to grow, it is getting colder fast.

We had a friend that put grass seed down down after the last snow in
winter.

It worked too.

shirley

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

Seeding now in Chicago is generally a waste. What makes you think the
seed is going to wait till next spring to germinate? What will happen
is it will germinate now, but most likely not have enough time to get
established before winter, which will kill most of it. The time to
have done this was a month ago. The only case where I would seed in
your area now would be if I had bare ground. In that case, I'd likely
use an annual rye for some quick cover for the winter.

In your case, I'd wait till spring to seed.

wrote:

Seeding now in Chicago is generally a waste. What makes you think the
seed is going to wait till next spring to germinate? What will happen
is it will germinate now, but most likely not have enough time to get
established before winter, which will kill most of it. The time to
have done this was a month ago. The only case where I would seed in
your area now would be if I had bare ground. In that case, I'd likely
use an annual rye for some quick cover for the winter.

In your case, I'd wait till spring to seed.

Or at least until cold weather as you're right about not enough time to
get established this fall. Seed will over-winter very well (it managed
on its own for years w/o us at all, so that's nothing abnormal) and
particularly where one gets some snow and freeze/thaw cycles it works to
get it in good contact w/ the ground and it's there all ready for
spring...

Chicago is far enough away from where I'm located I don't have a good
feel for just when, but a local Ag Extension office or good nursery man
can tell OP for sure...

wrote:
Seeding now in Chicago is generally a waste. What makes you think the
seed is going to wait till next spring to germinate? What will happen
is it will germinate now, but most likely not have enough time to get
established before winter, which will kill most of it. The time to
have done this was a month ago. The only case where I would seed in
your area now would be if I had bare ground. In that case, I'd likely
use an annual rye for some quick cover for the winter.

In your case, I'd wait till spring to seed.

Yeah, I vote for this answer.

"Or at least until cold weather as you're right about not enough time
to
get established this fall. Seed will over-winter very well (it managed

on its own for years w/o us at all, so that's nothing abnormal) and
particularly where one gets some snow and freeze/thaw cycles it works
to
get it in good contact w/ the ground and it's there all ready for
spring... "

That's an interesting question, which comes down to what germination
rate one would get next spring from seed that was planted in early
winter, when it' too cold to germinate. You'd have to compare that to
the germination rate from the same seed planted in spring. I would
expect to see that the germinatin rate is substantially higher for the
seed planted in the spring. You're right many seeds are designed by
nature to make it through the winter. But even then, it's a
statistical thing. Enough obviously must make it to keep the species
going, but that doesn't mean that given the choice of spring planting,
that spring planting wouldn't be substantially better.

And I'm not sure about typical grass seed, like fescue or blue grass.
I would think in nature, most of these would form seed heads in summer
and then germinate and establish in the fall? And I would think a
substantial portion of any seeds left for months on the surface would
succumb to wash out, animals, rot, etc.

Bottom line, I would go with the conventional approach. In Chicago,
that would be seeding in Sept, which would be best or waiting until
early Spring.

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 22:14:04 -0400, "Kyle Boatright"
wrote:

Never heard of this technique. Why not just seed in the spring if you think
it is too late this season for germination? My guess is that a large
portion of whatever seed you sew this fall will wash away, get eaten, or rot
before growing season next year. Instead of a 90% germination rate, I think
you'll be looking at far less.


On the other hand, if he's overseeding a lawn that's going to recover
anyway, the germination rate doesn't really matter.

wrote:

"Or at least until cold weather as you're right about not enough time
to
get established this fall. Seed will over-winter very well (it managed

on its own for years w/o us at all, so that's nothing abnormal) and
particularly where one gets some snow and freeze/thaw cycles it works
to
get it in good contact w/ the ground and it's there all ready for
spring... "

That's an interesting question, which comes down to what germination
rate one would get next spring from seed that was planted in early
winter, when it' too cold to germinate. You'd have to compare that to
the germination rate from the same seed planted in spring. I would
expect to see that the germinatin rate is substantially higher for the
seed planted in the spring. You're right many seeds are designed by
nature to make it through the winter. But even then, it's a
statistical thing. Enough obviously must make it to keep the species
going, but that doesn't mean that given the choice of spring planting,
that spring planting wouldn't be substantially better.

Not that bad, actually, for most cool season grasses. I've done some
counting in the past and typically got somewhere in the mid-80s for
germination rates.

And I'm not sure about typical grass seed, like fescue or blue grass.
I would think in nature, most of these would form seed heads in summer
and then germinate and establish in the fall? And I would think a
substantial portion of any seeds left for months on the surface would
succumb to wash out, animals, rot, etc.

Most actually don't ripen until fall when it is actually too late to
reseed that year. Of course, many of the cool season grasses also
propogate and "thicken up" in the fall by tillers, not seed.

Some, certainly, is lost to various causes. Some is also lost in the
spring. The advantage of late fall overseeding is as noted before the
"automagic" working of the seed into contact w/ the ground by the
freeze/thaw cycle and that it is there waiting for the earliest spring
start.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're wrong, simply pointing out
that the other method can work pretty well as well....

Bottom line, I would go with the conventional approach. In Chicago,
that would be seeding in Sept, which would be best or waiting until
early Spring.

wrote:

And I'm not sure about typical grass seed, like fescue or blue grass.
I would think in nature, most of these would form seed heads in summer
and then germinate and establish in the fall? And I would think a
substantial portion of any seeds left for months on the surface would
succumb to wash out, animals, rot, etc.

That's the major difference between wild plants and domesticated ones;
wild ones are strongly selected by nature/evolution to be fairly
conservative about sprouting, so that they don't all sprout the first
warm spell in January and all die the next week. Whereas, the process
of sowing and harvesting domestic plants in agriculture automatically
selects for seeds which are prompt sprouters, the shy ones don't come
up in time to get harvested.

Similar to selection in domesticated animals; animals that resist
promiscuous mating don't get to reproduce under selective breeding
conditions. One difference between dogs and wolves, for instance.


Bottom line, I would go with the conventional approach. In Chicago,
that would be seeding in Sept, which would be best or waiting until
early Spring.

Joseph Meehan wrote:
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.


We had a record dry summer here. Give him a break.

A

Angrie.Woman wrote:
Joseph Meehan wrote:
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.


We had a record dry summer here. Give him a break.

A

Turned out to be a good way to kill off that big patch of some kind of
weedy ground cover infiltrating the lawn on the sunny side of the garge.

z wrote:
Angrie.Woman wrote:

Jo


The parks department just seeded some bare patches here in Chicagoland.
We've had a record warm fall, might be worth a try.

A

Joseph Meehan wrote:



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.


He did mention a drought. Wasn't he being responsible and considerate by
not wasting water on a lawn?