Fall Overseeding Questions

10 years ago

I have a part blue grass part tall fescue lawn that has some damage in areas from dog urine, other areas are a bit thin and in others frankly I don't know why the grass died. Anyways, I was thinking of having the lawn dethatched as there is some thatch build up, but then thought about doing a core areation. If I do the latter is having the lawn dethatched a waste of time and money?

The soil is clay. I have had core areation done every other year and have found that it really has helped the lawn quite a bit.

I figure if I overseed right after the areation the seed will wash into the plug holes taking care of the seed to soil contact issue.

I can then also fix the various dog damaged areas by hand.

Any thoughts?

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Comments (2)

mulchmama
10 years ago
If you have a lot of thatch, then doing both power raking and core aeration can only be a good thing. We did both last fall, after not dethatching for several years, and the results this year were amazing.

When you are overseeding, however, you need to verticut in two directions to get the best coverage. Sure, the seed will run into the holes left by core aeration, but you will get clumps coming up that look like hair plugs. Clusters of seeds run into the same hole and all come up in an overcrowded clump -- not the ideal situation.

We had a landscaper convince us to let him do that one year and it was awful. Fescue is a clumping grass and it never did all grow together. Bluegrass might have yielded a better result because it spreads, but I would still ALWAYS verticut when seeding a lawn. If you verticut, you will get nice even crossed rows of grass coming up, as well as some "hair plugs", which won't be nearly as noticeable.
mulchmama
10 years ago
If you have a lot of thatch, then doing both power raking and core aeration can only be a good thing. We did both last fall, after not dethatching for several years, and the results this year were amazing.

When you are overseeding, however, you need to verticut in two directions to get the best coverage. Sure, the seed will run into the holes left by core aeration, but you will get clumps coming up that look like hair plugs. Clusters of seeds run into the same hole and all come up in an overcrowded clump -- not the ideal situation.

We had a landscaper convince us to let him do that one year and it was awful. Fescue is a clumping grass and it never did all grow together. Bluegrass might have yielded a better result because it spreads, but I would still ALWAYS verticut when seeding a lawn. If you verticut, you will get nice even crossed rows of grass coming up, as well as some "hair plugs", which won't be nearly as noticeable.
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