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ivycide

Rehabilitating centipede lawn

ivycide
10 years ago

I am in GA and I have an existing centipede lawn which isn't in good shape. The grass is thin and there are plenty of weeds. I suspect it is classic centipede decline brought on by overfertilizing. There is some thatch, though I wouldn't say it's a huge problem.

I am going to reseed to lawn. I want to prepare the ground by raking the lawn with a steel garden rake. When I've done this before seeding a fescue lawn, it has greatly improved the germination rate. My concern is that this might damage the existing centipede grass by pulling out stems and stolons. On the other hand, if there is only mild damage to the existing grass but it truly helps germination, that's an OK tradeoff for me.

Is raking the lawn a bad idea?