Everything's Germinated Now

[Smallaxe]

I've noticed that a lot of anxiety over Fall seeding has arisen in the forum as of late...

So now I'm curious:

How many projects failed for you this year? ...and... Why do you think it failed??

I'm just moving on to 'Dormant Seeding' in a couple of weeks, for the final touchups,,, but it would be good to hear what works and what doesn't work, from other professionals...

[DA Quality Lawn & YS]

My seed jobs all did very well. All done by beginning of October.
It is very pleasing driving by one of your overseed jobs and seeing the lawn much thicker and more green.

[Smallaxe]

The seed I broadcast onto the brown grass back around Labor Day is all up now and looking as full as the composted bare areas...
The aerated turf with multiple passes had seed come up nice, but the overwatering killed most of it off by the time the irrigation was shut down...

What various planting methods, did you employ???

[RigglePLC]

I seeded a thin burned out area with Pennington Sun and Shade seed, 64 percent perennial rye, on Sept 27th, (before). Temperature 63. Half I seeded regular rate, left side, and raked it in three times. Half I seeded; three times over, with no soil preparation at all, right side. As I recall--the right side had about 40 seeds per square inch when I counted a square inch.
At first it remained dry, but then it started to rain after about a week and this was followed by a two heavy rains about a week apart. The seed germinated and began to look fairly good, at 29 days, and it was thicker on the triple-seeded right hand side. Second photo, After.

[White Gardens]

We've had mediocre success.

On my commercial accounts I feel that the lawn chem applicators had something to do with the germination problem.

Even the seed we put down about the first of October didn't seem to germinate until about now.

Not sure what the issue was exactly. I think warmer than usual temps between the rains along with an herbicide app residue kept from having good germination.


......

[Smallaxe]

Originally Posted by White Gardens

We've had mediocre success.

On my commercial accounts I feel that the lawn chem applicators had something to do with the germination problem.

Even the seed we put down about the first of October didn't seem to germinate until about now.

Not sure what the issue was exactly. I think warmer than usual temps between the rains along with an herbicide app residue kept from having good germination.


......

Perhaps they may have even applied pre-m for the sake of 'winter weeds'...

For us when the drought was diminished in latter half of Oct. the temps went below normal and have remained that way ever since...

[DA Quality Lawn & YS]

One thing I learned is if you try to overseed when soil temps are too damn high (seed too early in season), seed will not germinate. Gotta wait until soil temps moderate.

[Smallaxe]

Originally Posted by DA Quality Lawn & YS

One thing I learned is if you try to overseed when soil temps are too damn high (seed too early in season), seed will not germinate. Gotta wait until soil temps moderate.

Most of my lawns have adequate shade from the most intense sun, but I believe you may have a valid point... hard to imagine that the ground gets too hot to germinate grass seed in this part of the country for such a long period of time...

even in my shade lawns, things were just not normal until the rains in Oct...
now its dry and acting funny again,,, so here comes the snow...

[ProStreetCamaro]

These were taken a couple weeks ago. They are now completely filled in.

before





after





In this picture you can see where the area was bare. I made a big boo boo and hammered it with roundup a few weeks prior.






Aerating and seeding does work even in thin to bare areas if you go over the thin or bare area multiple times. Works even better if you can hit those areas with seed before and after aerating.

[Smallaxe]

Even in the long grass you can still see the dollhair effect... Is the grass always that long???