Are you going to use a verticutter or slitseeder? I would do that. It will loosen up the soil and drop the seed. After doing this, use a lawn roller to pack down the ground. You only need to go over the lawn once. Before seeding, however, make sure your soil is damp from watering or previous rains. Once you roll the ground after seeding, the seed will be embedded for the most part and your risk of losing seed will be markedly reduced. Seed to soil contact is king. If you aren't doing this, you will be very frustrated with your results.

I was planning on cutting the grass down to 1.5" and using my rotary spreader. That is why I was worried about the product being washed away.

Maybe I should look into renting a verticutter.

Thanks for the heads up.

How is your thatch looking? You may want to power rake it after mowing it down, then rake up or mow/bag the thatch after power raking. Then your dirt is loosened, use your broadcast seeder and roll the lawn after.

Cutting the grass down that short is a good idea, and definitely use a verticutter. Unless you get a gulley washer of a storm, your seed should remain in place. The existing grass will help a lot.

Six years ago, we had an entire new lawn hydroseeded over bare soil in the back yard -- about 3/4 of an acre of lawn. Three days later we had 24 hours of vicious storms, and the seed and slurry, as well as a lot of soil washed everywhere, in drifts and stripes. It was an unmitigated disaster that took us five years to correct into a decent lawn. So you are correct to be concerned.

Cutting the grass down that short is a good idea, and definitely use a verticutter. Unless you get a gulley washer of a storm, your seed should remain in place. The existing grass will help a lot.

Six years ago, we had an entire new lawn hydroseeded over bare soil in the back yard -- about 3/4 of an acre of lawn. Three days later we had 24 hours of vicious storms, and the seed and slurry, as well as a lot of soil washed everywhere, in drifts and stripes. It was an unmitigated disaster that took us five years to correct into a decent lawn. So you are correct to be concerned.

Tell me about dethatching. Is this a yes everytime when we talk about overseeding?

I have had my yard aerated 4 times over the past 2.5 years, last time this spring. I know these are different, just stating.

I applied 90lbs of alfalfa to my lawn close to 3 weeks ago as well. Will using a dethatching rake pull up all that healthy matter I added?

I am going to pull up some soil tonight to see how thick it is to see if I should even bother.

Regarding dethatching.. it's not a "yes" every single time. I power raked (or dethatched) my lawn in early May of this year and seeded on Labor Day. Right after my power raking adventure, I bought a new Honda HRX mower with a quadra cut blade. I bagged my grass every 4th mow, mulching the other times, but next letting the grass get much higher than 4 and a half inches. I also never mowed it below 3 inches.

When it was time to seed last week, I scalped the lawn with my mower to about an inch and a half and bagged that. There was very little thatch in my yard to speak of. So there was no need to power rake. You can limit your thatch in a lot of ways and I suspect with a good, sharp mulching blade system and a consistent cut, you won't have a lot of thatch. Bagging every now and then helps as well. You can test the thatch by cutting out a plug from your ground about an inch and a half in width. You will see the thatch if it's there.

Short answer to your question is NO. Although, power raking before any overseeding is never going to hurt. You just have to bag up the thatch after doing it. It's more of a saving time/money thing if you don't need to dethatch.