The good, the bad, and the ugly from our recent experiences. With the fair weather we’ve been having these last few weeks, now would be just about as good a time as any to get the lawn ready to go for the year if you haven’t already. We’re far from experts, but here’s some insights we gained from our successes as well as our mistakes.
Declutter, aerate, overseed, and apply early spring fertilizer.
Yesterday afternoon Kelly and I decluttered the yard of kid’s toys and fallen branches, and we raked a little here and there. We also overseeded and fertilized the entire lawn. We didn’t aerate this year even though there are a few areas where an excavator and some wheelbarrows went that really need it. We do highly recommend yearly aeration; we just didn’t have it in us! For an early spring fertilizer, we once again went with the triple 17 plus iron from Valleyfield Farm in Lower Sackville, which started us off last spring with an insanely lush, thick, and green lawn in almost no time at all. We’re very hopeful for a repeat of last year.
We had some beautiful hardscaping done last fall by Clintar Commercial Outdoor Services, including some driveway soldier course, a backyard patio, a side-door retaining wall, and a front walkway – all done in Rosebel faux flagstone 50 mm with a border of Melville 80 mm (near the driveway too for standing up to parked vehicles) – which looks phenomenal! These guys did a terrific job, and we’d definitely like to do a post in the future about the project. As mindful and diligent as their guys were with precautions though, the excavator and wheelbarrows understandably did a number on the delicate Kentucky bluegrass (KBG) in our lawn, which we elected to repair and put the finishing touches on ourselves.
Repair damaged spots
In these scarred patches of lawn, we did a few extra passes with our dethatching tool followed by extra grass seed from our drop-spreader. We went with a standard perennial grass blend acquired on our most recent trip to Valleyfield Farm. This mix, heavy on the delicate but fast-spreading KBG with some rye and tall fescue for good measure, is intended to get the whole lawn populated and looking green fast. The blend also had a little annual rye, which while not ideal in the long term, will at least sprout up quickly to keep everything else in place, preventing grass seeds from washing away wherever it’s bare.
Once the lawn is full and we get through this bag of seed, I’m thinking we’ll go with something that doesn’t contain annual rye and KBG, so we can start working towards a tougher lawn that better handles the traffic and abuse our dog and three young girls dish out on it.
One other note on this matter: be mindful of grass seed products that come premixed with fertilizer. Last year, we had some leftover Scotts combination grass seed / fertilizer from Costco that we spread around, and between that and the separate fertilizer we’d also applied, and the fact that I had a brainfart and went extra heavy with the Scotts on the bare spots (outright overfertilizing them) in an attempt to get thick growth, we risked burning the lawn from too much nitrogen. Most of the lawn turned out lush and thick, but a couple of spots in the backyard did get burned – we’re hoping they’ve washed out enough that they thrive this year.
Peating or top-dressing
We didn’t go with any peat moss over our fresh grass seed on the bare spots this year. While it will certainly help keep seeds in place, retain moisture, and make foraging grass seed a bit trickier for the birds; our backs were already sore from all the work, the birds don’t bother us too much, and there isn’t much in the way of heavy rain or extremely hot weather forecast this next week or so. For any emergency mid-summer lawn repair though, when it gets exceedingly difficult to keep patches of bare soil from drying out in the hot sun even with several waterings a day, you almost need peat moss.
Another thing that works well is to mix your seed into a bag of topsoil, and then apply that mixture to damaged areas. You can also top dress with that mixture to great effect, gently working it into the grass blades with a rake to level out any low spots. This year we didn’t bother with such a mixture, but there’s no doubt it’s one of the best ways to restore a damaged area, especially if the lawn is more compacted in those parts than it should be, and the benefits of the most recent aeration haven’t yet taken effect.
Water often and lightly with new seed.
What great timing we had last night! As soon as we finished the overseeding and spot repair, the gentlest of rains started to fall and continued on falling through today. It’s keeping that newly laid seed nice and damp without washing everything away, so that it sprouts. For the less rainy days over these next two weeks, I’ll be doing a quick pass with our garden hose over the entire lawn before and after work, misting it just enough to ensure the whole thing stays moistened and seedlings don’t dry out and die off, without leaving excess moisture on the lawn overnight.
Water heavily and less often once new grass is established.
Once the new grass has taken well with good coverage and minimal exposed soil, we transition to a more heavy but less frequent watering schedule, at least a few times before the summer, or once or twice weekly seems to be enough for our lawn. The goal is to reach deeper into the soil to expand the root system and make the grass hardier for the coming drought and heat of late July to early September. We’ve read it’s about 1 to 1.5 inches of water to hit a half foot of depth in the soil without oversaturating, though we don’t actually bother to measure that out!
If the lawn is staying lush and somewhat green, not crackling and dying when its walked on, and not getting patchy overall, then that tells us we’re putting down enough water. If small lakes and rivers are forming as we’re sprinkling, that’s a good sign we’re past due moving the sprinkler to another spot, at least until its had a bit of time to soak in. No sense wasting good H2O, and water run-off will wash away grass seeds, soil, and nutrients; as well as erode divots, valleys, and uneven areas into our lawns.
- Don’t water frequently, except with new grass and grass seeds
- More water, less often, is best with established grass
- If you’re watering heavily and/or getting rained on repeatedly, it’s not giving the roots much time to breathe, which is stressful in and of itself, and can cause rot.
- Water earlier in the day, before evaporation from the sunlight and heat becomes and issue, and also to prevent the lawn from being soggy overnight which invites mold growth and rot
- Always spread seed, lime, and fertilizer before you water. If you water first, your product won’t fall down into the soil where it’s needs to be, as it could stick to the wet grass (lime or fertilizer in prolonged contact with grass blades will cause damage)
Lime
We’ll normally put pelletized lime in the same drop- or broadcast-spreader we use for our fertilizer, and then do a quick pass after we’ve finished applying the early spring and/or late fall fertilizers. The pelletized lime takes several months to breakdown so the results are nowhere as obvious as they can be with nitrogen fertilizer or iron supplement. Moreover, we have never before done a soil test to determine if lime was truly needed, or if we should reconsider the fertilizer ratios we’re using, but the general rule of thumb seems to be that lime is good for most Nova Scotian soils, and with our lawn being young, it’s a safe bet we can get away with some lime and balanced fertilizer without much fuss. At our old home in Beaver Bank, lime seemed very useful. There was a substantial amount of moss growth that was only ever held at bay after numerous lime applications over the course of the first few years. Lime seems to move the pH away from the range at which many native weeds do best, and closer to the range at which our lawns’ grasses thrive.
High N fertilizer
Regular applications of nitrogen fertilizer are highly recommended in general, but we’ll play it by ear this spring. Last year, on top of the Scotts combo seed/fertilizer mentioned earlier, we applied high nitrogen fertilizer for mid-spring, and it was a huge mistake: our lawn went absolutely ballistic with all the rain, especially in all the areas that got a ton of indirect sunlight but were sheltered from the stress of the scorching midday sun. It was to the point that even mowing more than twice a week was not enough to keep the height at bay!
A lot of time was wasted dealing with clippings that threatened to clog the mower and smother the lawn. The neighbours probably thought I was nuts, out there mowing two, almost three times a week. The added nitrogen was too much of a good thing! This spring, we will apply high nitrogen fertilizer sparingly throughout the lawn and all but skip the problem spots entirely, relying there on the triple 17 we dropped yesterday to carry us through to the late summer application. Hopefully that’ll be the sweet spot.
Was your grass growth out of control last spring during all the rain we got here in Halifax? Were you out mowing twice a week or more, and struggling to keep atop the growth? Do you strongly dislike mowing more than once a week? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you might consider going very lightly on your spring high N fertilizer application, or maybe go with a fertilizer ratio that’s somewhat lower in nitrogen and see how the lawn fares.
Well, that’s the bulk of what we will do this spring to prep our lawn. That, and a little bit of hand weeding here and there. Once that baby grass starts coming up there will be no walking over the lawn except to water it, and no mowing until about two weeks from now. After that, we’ll be out mowing our lawn at least once or twice weekly – always near the max of what our mower blade height allows – until the grass growth finally slows down mid-summer! Then we’ll finally kick back and relax on our summer lawn care schedule!