Fall Overseeding

Late summer or early autumn is a great time for fall overseeding to heal cool-season lawns that have been damaged by the summer.  Summer damage includes diseases, drought,  lawn damaging insects or foot traffic.  That’s because cool-season grasses as their name implies, grow best when air temperatures are between 60 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

How to do fall overseeding

Fall overseeding consists of selecting the best grass seed to use for fall overseeding and then applying it to the lawn appropriately.  In order to do it correctly you must use the proper amount, with either a rotary or drop spreader.  This also requires some knowledge of the types of turfgrass so the new grass matches (as much as possible) the appearance of the lawn where it is being seeded.  It also requires some mathematical calculations so that you apply the correct amount of seed to the lawn.

 

Fall aeration and overseeding

Since germination depends upon seed-to-soil contact, fall overseeding is often combined with lawn aeration which pulls cores of soil from the lawn so that water, air and nutrients have easier access to turfgrass roots.  The resulting holes in the soil also give the new turfgrass seedlings favorable conditions to grow and mature assuming the receive frequent light, watering, and are fertilized properly.

 

Advantages of overseeding

There are many advantages of overseeding.  Overseeding will fill in areas of turf damaged by summer stress, diseases or lawn damaging insects.  Overseeding also thickens and increases the density of thin lawns.   The lawn’s ability to fight lawn damaging insects and diseases will be increased by a lot.  Overall, the appearance of the lawn will be improved majorly.