Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
|
Home Repair (alt.home.repair) For all homeowners and DIYers with many experienced tradesmen. Solve your toughest home fix-it problems. |
Reply |
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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 |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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 |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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 |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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. |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
We had a friend that put grass seed down down after the last snow in
winter. It worked too. shirley |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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 |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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. |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
|
#9
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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. |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
"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. |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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. |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
|
#13
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
|
#14
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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 |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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. |
#16
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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 |
#17
|
|||
|
|||
"Dormant seeding" lawn question
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? |
Reply |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Reviving an Abused Lawn? | Home Repair | |||
New grass lawn project ideas??? | Home Repair | |||
Cordless Electric Lawn Mowers: Review & Recommendations | Home Ownership | |||
Simple question regarding Ceiling tiles and sound? | UK diy | |||
Can my Craftsman 15.5 hp, 42 in. Deck Lawn Tractor use Craftsman 42 in. Deluxe Lawn Tractor Snow Thrower | Home Ownership |