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gbelous_gw

Newbie for lawn care

gbelous
9 years ago

I bought a house last summer and have never taken care of a lawn before so all this is new to me. There are two major questions I have about our back yard. I live in Connecticut so it's warm summers and freezing winters.

1. There is a lot of shade, so there are several areas where large spots of moss is growing, is the best way to remove it to dig up the moss and replant grass seed suitable for shade in these areas?

2. There are a few low spots that I want to level off, maybe 5 feet in diameter is the largest and only a couple inches deeper than the surrounding area. After researching online a bit, it seems like I can just fill with topsoil, tamp down until it's leveled off then just replant with new seed. Is this the best way to go about it? There are also a few areas of just rocky dry dirt that doesn't seem habitable for grass, I want to replace it with new topsoil and reseed. Is this the best action to take?

Sorry this is so long, just trying to explain it best I can. Let me know if I left anything out.

Comment (1)

  • dchall_san_antonio
    9 years ago

    1. Did you water the lawn last summer? If so did you water it more like every day or more like once a week? Because watering too often can be an invitation to moss. And correcting the watering can sometimes resolve moss issues. Would the mossy areas be the same as the low areas you asked about in question 2?

    1a. Now is not the best time to seed new grass, but if you have to you have to. Just don't spend your entire lawn budget getting the best seed since any new turf grass will not fare well in the summer heat. You should wait until fall to put in the money and effort if you want this to really work. The fescue grasses are the ones that are shade tolerant in the north.

    2. If you simply level off the low spots they will continue to settle for a few years leaving you with low spots. Instead you should mound the soil up about an inch higher than the surrounding soil. Roll it down or walk over every square inch of the area to firm it up. After this it should be an inch higher than the rest. Then as it settles it will settle back down to the level of the rest of the area.