Help with lawn! Thinking I may need a kill and re-seed

9 years ago

Hello everyone, new to the site, love it so far. Im 22, we just bought our first home, last year, and the lawn has been a nightmare. Our previous home had "perfect" grass. (Perfect as in the only problems we had during the year was dandelions, other than that, it was super thick, green and even)

Ive always been a fan of the Scotts Spring/Summer/Fall fertilizers, they've helped tremendously, but our new house is fighting with me.

It was foreclosed and abandoned basically for 5 years, so it got the "once a month" lawnmower on lowest setting cut I would imagine, but after the first Spring application of Scotts plus Halts, it really came to life. Nice and green, and looked good. But its not all grass, its crabgrass, and some really thick bladed grass, that I really dont know what it is lol.

Theres so much different "grass" in this yard, I dont even know whats what. The actual grass seems to struggle, and be kind of thin, while the crabgrass and other grass like weeds are thriving and thick. Ive sprayed numerous weed treatments, all of which kind of yellow the lawn for a week or so, not killing anything.

I have contemplated killing the lawn, and re-seeding, but that seems like its gonna be VERY expensive, and right now I have a tight budget. Expensive part seems that ill have to rent some power equipment that I have never heard of. However, I am up to the task, becuase I LOVE working on the lawn, and I couldnt put a price on having an all-grass "perfect" lawn.

Our yard is also very uneven, and has dips and ruts all over, so if we killed the lawn, it would be a perfect opportunity to flatten it out.

I am going to link to some pictures, I hope the links work. I was only able to upload one picture in this posting.

This is the front-sideyard, the worst one of all:
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This is the frontyard, not the worst part, but still weird, flattened and thick, almost like the grass has weaved itself together:
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This is the side/backyard, which is mainly weed-free, but has these ALL over it:
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This is the other backyard, its nice in some spots, matted down, crabgrass, etc:
{{gwi:117670}}

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Comments (5)

briandye
Original Author
9 years ago
After nearly a day of reading posts on here, I might just give it a good overseed this year.

Ill have to rent an aerator from Home Depot, and do that, which I think will make a huge difference since this soil is SO compacted. Its all soil, no clay but its dang near hard as a rock. When i've dug holes, I have to jump/stand on the shovel. (Im a 230ish pound guy)

If all else fails, next year ill have all the supplies and be ready to kill it and re-seed. (If I were to go that route now, it would be a couple weeks before I could start, which seems like it would really be pushing it)

I would greatly appreciate it though if someone could help identify the grass type I have, so I know which seed to buy. (Also, if you know a certain brand of seed or anything that would help!)

I only have stores like lowes, home depot, ace hardware around me. Lowes and HD obv have name brand bagged seed, but ace has the large racks of seed you bag yourself, all different kinds.

My yard is not shaded, only the back for a few hours a day.
briandye
Original Author
9 years ago
After nearly a day of reading posts on here, I might just give it a good overseed this year.

Ill have to rent an aerator from Home Depot, and do that, which I think will make a huge difference since this soil is SO compacted. Its all soil, no clay but its dang near hard as a rock. When i've dug holes, I have to jump/stand on the shovel. (Im a 230ish pound guy)

If all else fails, next year ill have all the supplies and be ready to kill it and re-seed. (If I were to go that route now, it would be a couple weeks before I could start, which seems like it would really be pushing it)

I would greatly appreciate it though if someone could help identify the grass type I have, so I know which seed to buy. (Also, if you know a certain brand of seed or anything that would help!)

I only have stores like lowes, home depot, ace hardware around me. Lowes and HD obv have name brand bagged seed, but ace has the large racks of seed you bag yourself, all different kinds.

My yard is not shaded, only the back for a few hours a day.
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morpheuspa (6B/7A, E. PA)
9 years ago
From what I can tell, it looks like standard tri-mix (fescue, rye, and Kentucky bluegrass).

Theoretically, any off the shelf seed would do. Functionally, I find most cheaper seed bags to have too many weed seeds in them, and the quality of the seed isn't that great.

Do yourself a favor and spring a few extra bucks for the Pennington or Rebel seed (Pennington is superior).

Other than that, for an "ignored" lawn, it doesn't look bad at all. I'd certainly spray for weeds, and I think I'd also use the shampoo method we chatter on about to loosen up your soil a bit.

I say it's not a miracle cure, DCHall says it is. We just disagree on what a miracle cure would be. :-) It can take some repeated applications, but it will absolutely loosen the soil.

Let me know if you can't find the postings about it. I don't mind repeating myself.
briandye
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks for the suggestion, where can I get that Pennington or Rebel seed at? Do any local stores carry it, or will I have to order it online?

And I have been wanting todo the baby shampoo since I read it, but what do you apply it with? I dont have anything that can spray short of an empty squirt bottle of say Windex or something. I even looked at lowes for something like a large sprayer, or one that connects to the hose, but cant find anything.
raee_gw zone 5b-6a Ohio
9 years ago
Here in Ohio you can find Pennington seed at Lowe's. Also Lowe's and HD surely have sprayers, did you look in the section where fertilizers and weed killers are? There are hose end sprayers and tank sprayers. A 5 gallon tank sprayer or two (one for fertilizers/treatments and one for toxics) is very useful to have. If you can't find them there you can get them on Amazon.