Quote:
Originally Posted by Hunter25
What are you my neighbor? I too live in Upstate NY and my lawn looked like that as well. I used the same Scotts seed with their fertilizer and overseeded.
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I live in Westchester County, N.Y. (Southern New York). I did an overseeding application as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hunter25
I also put straw over the top of all areas that Iseeded. Although it did come back totally, it is starting to fill in. I have 1 spot in my front yard that just will not grow. I've never had an issue witht he front either. Some grew and just turned brown after a week. I'm kinda lost on this one.
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Well, I'll tell you, I did reseed but I probably should have used more seed. The problem is that seed is so f__king expensive. As you can see in my OP my lawn was pretty stingy a month ago, but it looks decent now. For the benefit of you and the forum I'll explain what I ended up doing. This is also for my own benefit should I have this problem years from now. Hello future me!
I split each of the four peat moss packages into four pieces and then mixed in a 40lb bag of dirt with each .75cuft piece. I mixed standing up without bending over by using a bow rake to constantly move the material until it was mixed together. I did this right on the lawn so I didn't have to move the material far. Basically I ended up with a big mound of peat moss mixed with dirt. The consistency was pretty light -- if anything I could have used more dirt. One thing that is important is some of the bags of dirt were wet and they were much harder to deal with. Their weight wasn't the big issue, the fact that the dirt was so clumped together and was harder to break up was. The dry dirt broke up much easier with the bow rake and the clumping was minimal.
I loosened up all the bare spots using my bow rake. I then spread the dirt/moss mix over the lawn by using a big aluminum scoop to spread it over the lawn the same way one might spread road salt. When I was done everything was good and orangey/red. That used about 75% of the mound.
That Scotts seed is so expensive. I bought a Scotts EdgeGuard Mini seed dispenser for less than $40 from Home Depot and I set it properly but there is no way I got even close to the amount of seed coverage I should have. I think it had something to do with the dispenser because when applying the fertilizer I got the coverage I expected. I had had an AccuGreen 1000 but the axle rusted over cracking the plastic on the wheels, which is a shame because that thing was really accurate. Unfortunately it's predecessors are expensive so I just went with the mini.
Anyway I ended up using the edgeguard to spread the seed. I ran out of seed and had to go back to Home Depot to buy another bag. In hindsight I probably should have just brought an extra bag and returned it if I didn't need to open it. Then I put down the scotts starter fertilizer. That went down properly.
After the seed and fertilizer was down I covered it with a very very light coating of the peat moss and dirt mixture (the last 25%). Beforehand I made a real attempt at raking the seed in first (as Scotts suggests) using a fan rake but I had a lot trouble doing it without totally moving the seed away from where it should be. Maybe I didn't have the right type of rake to do that? I needed a thin tine rake maybe? Anyway when I finished I couldn't see the seed/fertilizer as it was covered/mixed in.
I watered every night for two weeks using a hose sprayer. There is no one position for a sprinkler on this lawn so I just used a manual sprayer. It took me about 15-30 minutes every night. One thing I had trouble with was making sure the waterflow didn't blow away the seed. I had to stand away and use more of a misty type to moisten the soil each night without disturbing the seed. Another thing to keep in mind is it was dry for like two weeks after I put down the seed and that's why I watered every night. The third week we had rain so I skipped a lot.
After two weeks I saw sprouts. The next two weeks the lawn has started coming in. It is still weak and this is my own fault. For the entire lawn I used the overseeding application which was not enough for the bare spots. In hindsight I should have gone over the bare spots twice on the overseeding setting or once with the new seeding setting.
Of course during this all time I encountered weeds once in a while and I spayed them selectively. That weed spray worked pretty well.
Pictures!
Here's a picture of what the lawn looked like with the dirt/moss mixture before any sprouting:
Here's a link to picture if it doesn't display above:
peatmoss.jpg
Here's one of the worst areas four weeks later. This is the area that was so bare I should have just gone over twice with seed. Most of the grass in this area is new. You'll notice it's darker green. From the walkways though it doesn't look bad just thin. Here's the picture:
Here's a link to picture if it doesn't display above:
thingrass.jpg
Here's typically what the rest of the lawn looks like now four weeks later:
Here's a link to picture if it doesn't display above:
fullgrass.jpg
And that's it!
As to your question about the spot that won't grow, that did happen to us because we have a dog and he had a favorite spot and his urine would always would end up burning the lawn in spots in a 10 ft radius. Otherwise I wonder if maybe you've considered peat moss? Every landscaper around here uses peat moss. And many years ago when I found that out I had called Scotts because they didn't say anything about that (still don't). And the guy I spoke to was like, yeah, you could. And I was like, great now that I'm done and the seed didn't grow I know that.
On a more technical note soil ph is important. The right ph basically means more nutrients can be taken easily from the soil by whatever is growing. Maybe you don't have the right ph to grow grass in that particular area. I do know with enough peat moss you can change ph to be more acidic but I don't think just a coating on top of the grass can change the ph. Although maybe someone who does landscaping for a living knows.
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