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| I seeded my lawn about 4 weeks ago with a sun/shade mix from seed superstore - 80% fine fescue, 20% KBG by weight. I raked, rolled, and used Penn Mulch as a covering. I was diligent with watering and was pretty pleased with the results after 15 days:
Having seeded in the spring, I was expecting to deal with some weeds, but wasn't expecting to have so many large bare spots after now 26 days. I have other areas with better coverage, but I figured you'd want to see the worst. The soil isn't as dry as it appears. I do need to water, but we had a half inch of rain around here about 24 hours ago:
When I planted the seed we had a week in the northeast with temps in the 70's. Shortly after that we had a large storm with 2+ inches of rain and the temps dropped to the 50's during the day and 30's at night for a while. Did the weather delay germination and am I just being impatiet or do you think I did something wrong and should put down more seed? I ordered extra seed expecting to have to overseed again in the fall, so I have it on hand. Thanks |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Are those pebbles and stones? Is that soil clay? That looks way too familiar to me. If I think your soil is what it looks like, I wrote I diatribe about my experience on another thread. I'm sure other, more experienced people will give you advice and maybe I can learn something. |
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| I think you are dealing with two issues. One is that storm, that likely pushed your seeds around, creating areas of no seed, and those of heavy seed. The second is the weather. That early warm up really fooled a lot of people as the cold came back, and in fact it hasn't been that warm in the northeast. Not sure what your soil temps are, but they are probably still on the low end of the germination range, especially in a shady yard. I think most of the seed that has germinated is all you are going to see. I would scrape around in some of the bare areas to see if there are any seeds still there, but I am not too optimistic you have a lot of ungerminated seed left. Did you do something wrong? Depends on who you ask, but you probably already know late summer/early fall is the best time to seed. Did you do a soil test? Buying seeds at SSS might be considered wrong, since they charge a lot more than anyone else I have ever seen on the internet, but they carry good cultivars. |
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| Did the soil test and I had good conditions for turf grass. pH is 6.6 with all of the essential nutrients in abundance. The soil isn't clay, probably loam, but I didn't have that component of the soil test done. The "pebbles" in the picture are the PennMuich, which for some reason hasn't decomposed yet. I corrected the grading in the yard and the worse areas are the ones closest to the house which are a little higher. I think there's a good chance the seed did get washed down to the lower lying areas. I had to seed now otherwise I would have had a yard of dirt for 6 months. I knew it would be tough, which is why I have extra seed saved. Do you suggest reseeding the bare spots now or waiting to the fall? |
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| It's really up to you. Summer will be here soon, and seedlings don't fare that well if it's hot and humid, but having a shady lawn might mitigate some of those effects. Weeds will be an issue of course as you will not be able to use herbicides till the new stuff is up and mowed a few times, and only if it's not too hot. I would probably reseed since I hate bare soil, and summer downpours will probably cause some erosion, but it will probably be a struggle. Of course once the weather breaks you can always seed again, woo hoo! |
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