Topdress, Slitseed, overseed, detatch, sweep!

[04SIERRA04]

Good afternoon everyone!

Well, it's that time of year again!

The lawn at the cottage has some bare spots, some clover and some crabgrass.

As it's fall and very damp this year I figure it would be a good time to tackle the front yard at least.

Here's what I'm thinking of doing and please let me know what you would do differently!

1- Mow grass short
2- Run Ryan core aerator in 2 directions, up/down and then left/right
3- Run Bluebird lawn comber and detatch certain areas focusing more on the areas that have heavy clover or heavy crabgrass
3- Sweep the lawn with a tow behind sweeper to remove freshly fallen pine needles and the thatch that I removed
4- overseed or slitseed? In a previous post someone said that they rented a slitseeder from HD. Were they referring to Home Depot? OR does anyone know where in Ottawa (canada) area I can rent a GOOD slitseeder? Ideally, I would also pass it in 2 directions.
5- Fertilize! BUT-> with WHAT? Scotts Starter fertilzer? Something to kill the broad leaves clover? or something to take care of the crab grass???

Their will be some areas that I will top dress just to level it out. The yard is way too big to top dress the entire thing without a tractor with a loader.

Any ideas and suggestions are appreciated!

[DoetschOutdoor]

Sounds like a good plan...the condition of the yard would make me determine whether to overseed or powerseed. I rent aerators and powerseeders from Home Depot because they have good rates and have good equipment. Dont know if all HD have tool rentals as they just added ours a few years ago. Do not use Scotts products, you can get better products at alot lower prices especially since most seed stores will give you a discount being in business. Dont worry about the weeds as they will die off soon this time of the year. Get a good fertilizer from your seed store that has no weed killer and will be safe to put down with the seed.