Overseeding

Overseeding can revive and invigorate a marginal lawn.  Most lawns can benefit from renovation and planting new grass plants that are more resistant to insects, disease, and more tolerant of drought.

Patchy areas can only be filled with new plants.  The most common type of grass in our area is tall fescue.  This type of plant will not propagate and spread from an existing plant.  At best a fescue plant will thicken with additional sprouts.

Overseeding renews the lawn and biases plant growth in favor of grass.  Weeds begins to take over areas of your lawn because nature relentlessly introduces weed seed to potentially germinate in your lawn.  Once weed seed contacts the soil and has room to grow, you'll have weeds.  Keeping weeds out of patchy areas with regular chemical treatments will be counterproductive to the long term health and vigor of your lawn.

Common sense suggest that by filling bare spots with quality grass seed well suited to your climate, weed seed will have a more difficult time germinating and becoming established.  By encouraging and fostering the full growth of grass, even weeds that do germinate will have a difficult time competing with grass.

The preferred method for overseeding is a powered-slit overseeding operation.  This specialized equipment has numerous thin vertical blades that slit the turf to create a seam for grass seed to be dropped and brushed into. Two passes in different directions is usually sufficient to overseed a patchy area.  One pass over fair turf would be sufficient as a yearly maintenance treatment.  Because seed is being introduced in a manner to have good seed-to-soil contact, germination rates are far superior to simple broadcasting of seed which has a very low germination rate. 

It can take 2-3 years of successive overseeding treatments for an overseeding program to be fully developed.  Overseeding makes much more sense as a priority in your lawn care budget than monthly or bi-monthly chemical treatments to kill weeds and over stimulate the growth of existing grass plants.

Over time by overseeding patchy areas annually with your core aeration treatment, your lawn will have all the advantages to reach it fullest potential.

Care of Newly Overseeded Lawn