Hydroseed method

RigglePLC · Jul 7, 2018

Not sure if this was the best plan. I do not know what company did the seeding. This is the random lawn a few blocks from me. It was killed and then after about two weeks, it was raked and hydroseeded; this about June 18, 2018. It has been watered with hoses--however the weather has been hot for Michigan. Mid nineties have occurred several times. Frequent rains seemed to stop--the day the seed was sown. Many lawns in town are brownish now. The tallest grass blades are about 5 inches tall. I have not seen crabgrass sprouts, but purslane has appeared; some plants are about 6 inches diameter. Clearly we can see the grass is thin in this corner. The grass blades average about 2 inches apart.
Should this job have waited until fall? Did the unknown contractor treat the unknown homeowner fairly?
Will it eventually succeed?
The earlier pictures are here:
https://www.lawnsite.com/threads/bare-spot-help.479285/page-5

Babaganoosh · Jul 7, 2018

The irony of that fire hydrant!

That soil looks dry, dry and dry!

Delmarva Keith · Jul 8, 2018

I’m guessing cool season grass seeded within the past three weeks. I know you know, but summer stresses cool season grass to the max. Without a well developed root system to store what it needs to recover from stress, it has basically no chance. Waste of time and money. If 10% survives until September, it would be a lot. At least they got some weeds to grow.

Anyone who charges a customer for this is stealing. To be fair, it’s possible the facts of nature were disclosed and the customer still insisted it be done. Customer donations always accepted.

There is plenty of established cool season turf struggling for survival this time of year. New baby grass, not a chance.

RigglePLC · Jul 12, 2018

Continuing from above discussion and photos. This lawn was killed and then hydroseeded, June 18. The homeowner is using hoses for water. There has been no mowing yet. Tallest grass is about 5 inches tall. However, the weather has been hot and dry. I did not see any crabgrass. Purslane is growing fast. What should his contractor do? Will he need to reseed?

Delmarva Keith · Jul 13, 2018

To save time & money, yes, reseed. Sept., gly the weeds and start over. We are barely mid-July and the grass still needs to survive the rest of July & August.

Any idea why they did this? To have something rather than nothing growing this Summer and then a planned Fall seeding? That would make some sense but expensive.

RigglePLC · Jul 13, 2018

Keith: I do not know why it was done this way. I will listen to any neighbor's comments I hear.
I agree--it would have been advisable to kill it about August first and reseed about August 15--considering there was no irrigation save for two hoses.

Of course, rains had been frequent up until the day the new hydraulic seeding went down.
We had about a tenth of an inch of rain on the night of July 12th. Temperature 84 F at noon.

Delmarva Keith · Jul 13, 2018

We’re looking at around 0.2 ETo per day here with about an inch and a half of rain total in over a month. Established, well irrigated lawns are browning out. A new seeding, forget it. On the upside, it has made identifying even slight irrigation coverage issues very easy. :laugh:

Established grasses will bounce back from dormancy but I’ve never had any luck letting new grass get even a little dry or hot. I’d maybe take a chance on a mostly shaded area but full sun is guaranteed crispy. Seems no matter how much it rains, the rain always stops as soon as the seed goes down. :blob2: Murphy’s law.

84 with insignificant rain, right now not all that much different than here. I feel sorry for the guy who paid for that hydroseed.

RigglePLC · Jul 16, 2018

I have been watching a random lawn a few blocks from me; it was killed. Then hydroseeded June 18, 2018. And here is the seeding; it is about a week later than the last photo. Weather is still hot and dry with a chance of rain expected. Temp 89, partly cloudy.
Purslane is going crazy. Homeowner has got to be disappointed. He moved in to the house about 8 weeks ago.
The good news--no sign of crabgrass.
There is fairly good grass establishment in the shade of the tree.

Can the purslane be sprayed?

KerbDMK · Jul 16, 2018

Delmarva Keith said:
We're looking at around 0.2 ETo per day here with about an inch and a half of rain total in over a month. Established, well irrigated lawns are browning out. A new seeding, forget it. On the upside, it has made identifying even slight irrigation coverage issues very easy. :laugh:

We've been averaging 0.2 inches evapotranspiration (ET) here too for the past two weeks. We did have one good rain storm in there but It's all I can do to keep the KBG lawn from going dormant. I've got 16k to water, with ¾ id hoses and big sprinklers and can still barely keep up.

1.5/week ET is normal here during peak of summer, it's a struggle with hoses.

Cjames808 · Jul 17, 2018

Looks like it didn’t take well. Probably hard soil. I’d respray right over it in fall, if it was my customer.

RigglePLC · Jul 21, 2018

This lawn was killed and then hydroseeded about June 18, 2018. Weather was hot and dry. New seed was sprinkled with two hoses. New grass was sparse in the corner near the fire hydrant. Otherwise, the new grass came in fairly well, particularly in the shade of the big maple tree.

Purslane weed took hold and grew densely in most areas.

Your ideas--ideally? Should it be fertilized? With what formula?
Should the weeds be sprayed?

View attachment 365280

Cjames808 · Jul 25, 2018

I meant that to mean Re-Hydroseeded when I said sprayed. We have success in warmer temps as long as it is watered frequently and evenly.

RigglePLC · Jul 26, 2018

CJames,
If you have done hydroseeding, what happens if you apply the green seed slurry right on top of the dead grass?

How long do you have to wait after the use of Roundup?

Turboguy, what is your experience? Is bare soil necessary? Can killed dead grass be hydroseeded after a 3 week wait? Two weeks? Do you have to wait for it to lay down flat?
Remove old sod with sod cutter?
Rake?
Power rake? Roto till?
Tractor till?
Remove top 3 inches?

Turboguy · Sep 13, 2018

RigglePLC said:
Turboguy, what is your experience? Is bare soil necessary? Can killed dead grass be hydroseeded after a 3 week wait? Two weeks? Do you have to wait for it to lay down flat?
Remove old sod with sod cutter?
Rake?
Power rake? Roto till?
Tractor till?
Remove top 3 inches?

I am sorry for the late response. I have been swamped with work and had not checked in since that post. I did see this thread earlier.

Bare soil isn't necessary. Tomorrow I will post a couple of photos to show what I mean. If the grass was killed with RoundUp you can seed the next day. That is pretty close to the photos I will post tomorrow. I am not saying there isn't an advantage to having bare, loose soil but I have seeded lots of jobs that were thin, where the old lawn had been killed with no raking or removal of dead materials. or where there were spots. Hard ground makes it a little more risky and hot weather does the same. For the most part if it gets water it will grow. One advantage to leaving the dead grass there is it creates a little shade on the soil surface which helps to hold moisture. The negative is that some of the hydroseeding will hang up on the dead grass blades so when I hydroseed over dead grass I try to point down and blast the surface. More tomorrow.

Cjames808 · Jul 26, 2018

We have re hydro seeded or over seeded over thin lawns that didn’t come in.

We make the mix with less mulch to ensure the seed gets under the grass and the extra water softens the ground. We try to spray straight down in a “whopping” pattern and like to seed about 10-15 seeds per square inch.

We also use 50# of seed per 600 gallons and 1 brick mulch per hundred gallons for regular spraying. Half the mulch for over or reprays.

Most problems arise when the soil isn’t loose enough. Really really need 3-6” of soft topsoil. But good hydro seed with consistent watering grows in almost any type it just may be thinner and take longer.

It’s a touchy thing. Being consistent with mix and prep is best.

May be selling our 600 gallon Finn for a larger unit. If you buy one get a 1200 gallon for yards. The 600 takes a couple refills to do a 1/4 acre

RigglePLC · Jul 26, 2018

Here is the most recent picture of the random lawn that was killed out for renovation--and hydroseeded about June 18, 2018. Owner is watering a lot with hoses--but there was also a good rain in the last few days. Purslane weed is very numerous. It appears to have been mowed for the first time. Corner near the fire hydrant is still thin. A possible sprout of crabgrass appeared adjacent to the fire hydrant.

RigglePLC · Aug 2, 2018

This lawn was killed and then hydroseeded about June 18, 2018. Homeowner sprinkled with hose--but weather was mostly hot and dry, light rains occurred this week. Purslane sprouted up very heavy. Not much crabgrass. Lawn has been mowed about 2 or 3 times.
Now it is clear that a hydroseeder has been used to spray new seed mixture in several thin areas.
I do not know who paid for the seed repair job. Does this mean weeds cannot be sprayed for 6 weeks?

RigglePLC · Aug 10, 2018

It is not perfect. At least there is grass covering the soil--most of it. The purslane weed is still very numerous. Crabgrass is essentially zero. Perhaps it is too early to spray weeds in this new grass. Is it better to just fertilize, and let the frost kill the purslane about October 20?
Somehow the new hydroseed slurry has disappeared and the bare spot appears to persist.

Delmarva Keith · Aug 10, 2018

I think there’s some irony in the dust dry looking dirt area being right next to a water hydrant. :laugh:

RigglePLC · Aug 10, 2018

So true, Keith! Plenty of water inside the hydrant--only inches away.
This would have been a good spot to use a longer hose. Put the sprinkler in the corner and throw the water back toward the main lawn. Set at 90 degrees.

RigglePLC · Aug 16, 2018

Here is the lawn August 16--about 8 weeks after a kill out and hydroseed job on a lawn in my neighborhood. It is thin in spots and has a lot of purslane weeds. Maybe his hose will not reach to the corner and behind the fire hydrant. Color is good. Not sure if it is a dark green perennial rye--or if it had fertilizer. I will try to get another picture in September and October. Very little rain, temps about 87.

Turboguy · Sep 13, 2018

Here are the photos I said I would post. This one happens to be my own yard but I have done many similar jobs. This is a house I bought 2 1/2 years ago and the lawn was redone about this time last year.

What I had before doing anything was the front lawn didn't look bad but it didn't look good either. It had a very thick growth of some wide bladed yellowish green grass. The blades were about 3/8" wide. The back lawn was mostly crab grass and clover.

So, I killed the whole thing with RoundUP, two applications and waited to make sure the old lawn was dead as a door nail. Then I hydro seeded it. I sprayed down with a lot of pressure but the canopy of dead grass was really thick and I had never seeded over anything quite so thick and did have some concern about having good results. The hydroseeding job wasn't particularly attractive since some hydroseed was on the blades and some below them.

The third photo is about 3 weeks after seeding. I was busy for the first week or so and could not take the time to water much but did start watering well after that and September last year was hot and dry. The results turned out great.

After I post this I am going to show another somewhat similar job.

Turboguy · Sep 13, 2018

This is another job that I did a few years ago with similar circumstances. The main difference was that they wanted a hillside they didn't have to mow so they wanted me to seed Crown Vetch. This was a business and the hillside wrapped completely around the property and was probably 3/4 mile long. I had them kill the existing vegetation with Roundup and then I seeded the Crown Vetch. As you can see from the photos the dead vegetation was very thick yet the job turned out great. Hopefully these two posts have answered your questions about what can be done.

RigglePLC · Oct 10, 2018

This is odd. I do not understand why. The lawn I mentioned above, where the redo was started about June 18, looked fairly good by October. Then I spotted a skid steer loader scraping the south edge where a slight berm had developed over the years, near the road. It was a long mound about 4 inches high and 18 inches wide along the road. Perhaps due to a buildup of sand used for winter ice control. The loader was used to scrape off the mounded up area and make it flat. Then the area was hydroseeded. But...why wasn't this done in advance before the lawn was originally killed and hydroseeded back in June? Weather will be cold soon. Frost expected this week. The trucks were were from Everetts's landscaping.
Major purslane weed infestation seems to be gone. Perhaps because the lowest temperatures have been about 42 F, in the last week.

RigglePLC · Oct 26, 2018

This lawn was killed and hydroseeded June 18, by an unknown company--possibly Everetts. I did not see the preparation. Probably a heavy raking, but no sod removal. Rains stopped about that time. Frequent sprinkling with hoses carried it through a hot summer. The newly hydroseed areas look good. A skid steer was used to remove a slight mounded area along the road in fall--then hydroseeded.

Hydroseed method

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