New Rye/Kentucky Bluegrass Lawn - now what?

9 years ago

Hello everyone,

I seeded my front lawn just under two weeks ago and am seeing some nice growth as of today. The blades are about 1 - 1.5" tall and it's coming in patches (I think this is normal). The grass is IQ Perennial Rye, Secretariat II Pernnial Rye, and Kentucky Bluegrass. I live in Massachusetts and the lawn is in the open sun for about 70% of the day, so I've been watering like crazy. Here are my questions:

1) Should I put down more seed in some of the more sparsely grown spots or would that be a waste of time?

2) Should I do anything before the cold arrives to make sure it handles the winter well and is ready to come back nicely in the spring?

3) Now that the grass is coming in in most areas, should I change my watering frequency Right now, I water before I leave for work and when I get home at lunch to water it's almost completely dry (on the surface only, I'm hoping...).

4) Is there a programmable hose timer anyone knows of that doesn't cut down on water flow? I bought a cheapo $25 timer at Wal-Mart but it cut down the flow too much and my sprinklers didn't reach far enough.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I could take a photo if that would help at all.

Comments (3)

dchall_san_antonio
9 years ago
The only thing that matters in your questions is #3. You can't know if you need more seed yet, because the only grass you are seeing so far is rye. Rye germinates and sprouts in a week. As you are experiencing, you have the impression that maybe you should back off on the watering. That would be incorrect. KBG seed takes a FULL 3 weeks to germinate. If you stopped watering lightly, 3x per day, you would end up with a rye lawn with no KBG. KBG is what you really want (in my opinion), so keep up the watering. You probably should have seeded a month earlier, but that ship has sailed.

I really like this hose timer by Orbit.
albany1
9 years ago
If you are overseeding and need to keep the new seeds wet(ie water daily),
But for the established grass you need to water weekly deep,how do you
Resolve this?
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morpheuspa (6B/7A, E. PA)
9 years ago
Favor the seed, which is the more demanding of the two. For now, the established lawn just has to deal with the excess damp--hopefully without a disease.

If disease crops up, treat it as you normally would, even though that's likely to cost you new sprouts. Fortunately, fall lawn diseases are rarer and less damaging on average than summer ones.