Call your landscaper now and cancel this project. It is totally unprofessional and irresponsible to be seeding a new lawn in the summertime. You need a new landscaper. Where do you live? There might be an exception to this if you live on the Pacific coast or New England coast. But those would not be zone 5. Need to know where you live. The problem is the new grass plants cannot withstand the heat and dryness of the summer. They will die out leaving room for weeds. The other problem is that crabgrass is germinating right now. If you water your grass seed like you are supposed to, the faster germinating crabgrass will come in like a wild fire to choke out your new grass literally before it gets started. By the end of July you would likely have a majority of crabgrass in the lawn. Now is an okay time for new SOD, but not new seed. And to answer your original question (since you are going to have it seeded anyway) the use of straw is only practiced in a few parts of the country. The rest of the world scatters compost or mulch. I don't like either of those approaches. Those trying to do it more naturally will use a water roller to roll the seed down. This makes good contact between the seed and soil, and that is the point of the other approaches. As you already know, straw or straw mat just adds profit to the job. It also brings in other issues that you don't need to bother with if you do it the more natural way.

Well it's good that it was done in April, that is a lot better than having it done recently. If it is KBG then that's also good, but you can only be sure by looking at it yourself and comparing it with pics on the internet. KBG takes a while to get established before it starts spreading and thickening. It should look much better by the fall, and even better next year. It would be a good idea to get a soil test to see what is going on in your soil, and if it needs anything. Umass has a very good one for 13 dollars, takes about a week. Just google UMass soil testing, it will give you all the instructions on how to do a test. In regards to watering in the predawn hours you can buy a timer at any of the big box stores for about 20 bucks, just make sure the sprinkler(s) are set correctly and firmly in the ground. Also if the grass is two months old you don't have to water every day unless you still have some seedling height grass. The weeds are inevitable with spring seeding. If they are everywhere you could use Weed-B-Gone or Bayer Advanced with a hose end sprayer as long as you have mowed the grass a few times already, just be sure and read the label so you don't harm your new grass. If they aren't too bad I would recommend a tank sprayer and just spot treat the weeds, you use a lot less chemical and your new grass won't all be exposed to it.

If you want to top dress your lawn with compost, but don't have enough (and who does?), you can cart home all the composted fish manure you want from the trout hatchery near Lake Lanier. All you can haul for free. Also, it is composted already so the smell is gone. The one problem I have noticed with it is that last year's batch had Johnson grass seeds in it. Because I was using it as a layer in lasagna beds, only a few seeds sprouted and I pulled them out. I would think twice about spreading it on my lawn without treating it first - don't know what that treatment would be.

Hi emagin, I havent seen so much activity around here on one day for a long time! I think the reason is what you said, rain all along the front range! And youÂre getting dumped on too, SteveÂI didnÂt know there was weather up that way so I checked NOAA, and there sure enough is! The last couple days IÂve been checking in to read quickly, but IÂve been holding off responding, because, since we were supposed to be getting rain, I wanted to be out making hay while the sun was shining! Now IÂm delighted to be sitting inside and watching the rain! ItÂs been intermittent and gentle. IÂve gotten about a half an inch so far, and radar shows more coming. I think my grass may have grown a foot overnight! Seriously itÂs not that tall, but it has TOTALLY greened up overnight, and I DO think I may need to cut it by the end of this week! March is TOO early to be cutting grass!!! Yikes! Now IÂm WET! I saw a couple VERY hungry looking house finches out on my feeders and realized I forgot to fill them yesterdayÂwhen I was making hay! So I went out to fill them. It wasnÂt raining much at allÂbut I decided to quickly fill my BIG bucket with potting soil while I was out there so it could warm up in the house before using it, and while I was doing that, the rain picked up! So now IÂm sitting in front of my quartz heaterÂsteaming! IÂm all humidÂlike Illinois! AnywayÂshe said thru the mistÂhave you ever considered turning most of your yard into "garden," emagin, or is it too big? A LONG time ago, when I was still married, we had friends in Park Hill who had done that with the back yard, and it was wonderful! It was a pretty small yard, and except for a small patch of KBG in the middle where you could sit if you wanted to, it was all WIDE, WIDE, curved beds all the way around, with some trees and bushes, and then all filled in with mostly perennialsÂand some vines on trellisesÂand some of everything! It was like being at a botanical garden in summer. My house finches are back filling up their tummies with safflower and sunflower! It was worth getting wet! If you decide to go with Achillea, you might want to consider interplanting it with woolly thyme to fill in all the little spaces between the yarrow. I think the two would compete pretty well. If youÂre willing to water thoroughly once every week or two, a combination of all the different creeping thymes could be REAL pretty. ThereÂs mother-of-thyme, T. praecox (pink); red mother-of-thyme (deep rose), T.p. ÂCoccineusÂ; white creeping, T.p. ÂAlbiflorusÂ; pink creeping, T.p. ÂPink ChintzÂ; lemon, T.p. ÂCreeping Lemon (thereÂs an upright lemon too), and more. The leaf colors can vary somewhat between the different varieties, and for the ones that bloom together, the different colored flowers would be pretty. ThereÂs also a miniature, T.p. ÂMinusÂ, with VERY tiny leaves and pink flowers, but that one spreads very slowly. Woolly is the most tolerant of foot traffic, and the most xeric, and has gray-green fuzzy leaves with lavender-pink flowers. ItÂs tought stuff once it gets going, and might even stand up on the dog path, but I donÂt know how youÂd ever be able to get it going very well with them on the path. And if you redirected them, by the time it got going, theyÂd be used to the Ânew" path and probably wouldnÂt want to use the old one anymore. LOL English daisies wouldnÂt tolerate foot traffic at all, though you could use them around the edgesÂbut they also tend to be pretty shortlived. I just got a packet of them this spring that IÂm going to stick in somewhere. I donÂt have any other suggestions for the dog path. The yarrow would probably hold up to the wear and tear tooÂif you could get it well established first (lease out your dogs for a year???) If you decide to go with a rock-type thing, theyÂd probably be willing to walk on pea gravelÂbut that stuff goes all over! My neighbors have it in their kidÂs play area, and it comes thru and under our (privacy) fence and gets all in my flower beds. I was just out there this week caulking theÂnot very bigÂcracks between the boards with clear silicone caulk. Did that last year and it works pretty well, but some of the cracks have gotten bigger, and some of it came looseÂand I didnÂt get all the cracks. I think I got it pretty good this year. So if you put a path of pea gravel, IÂd expect it to be spreading all over along the edges of the pathÂespecially when theyÂre running. On the yarrow invasiveness issue, at my last house it was growing in several places (in the grass) in my front yard, even though I didnÂt have any growing anywhere on my property, and, to the best of my knowledge, neither did any of my neighbors. Apparently birds and/or the wind carries the seed, and once itÂs started, it just keeps going, and going, and going.............. On the positive side, if you decide to go that way, this was in an area of mostly shade, and, while I donÂt think they would have ever bloomed, the foliage looked just fine. This was common yarrow, Achillea millefolium, which I assume is the one you all are talking about. I like the stuff a lot, but just donÂt want to get it started in my yard. I tried to get rid of it at the other house, and, even in the shade, was never able too. If youÂre looking for seed, IÂd check out WalMart and places like that. If they have what I want, I buy seed there. WalgreenÂs and Ace tooÂwith the 10 for a dollar coupon! You never know what youÂll find, but IÂve seen common yarrow seed at places like thatÂand you donÂt really care what color they are anyway. WM had a bunch of different seeds for 30 cents a pack, and even some for 10 cents. There arenÂt that many seed in a pack, but at 30 cents, if you buy 3 packs for a dollar, itÂs still cheaper than a $3 pack at a "fancy" store! You also might want to consider buying one or two 1-gallon plants this spring and growing your own seed this summer. Then youÂd have a constant supply of seed each year if you needed of fill in any areas later. (YouÂre not talking about acres, are you?) IÂm guessing that Achillea doesnÂt come true from seed, so the flowers from any of your seedlings would probably be pretty bland! If you decide to use any of the thymes, I recommend getting a couple small plants of whichever ones you want as soon as you can and stick them in somewhere in an area with improved soil and water them fairly often, and, before long, youÂll be growing your own supply. As soon as the edges start to root, dig out some "plugs" and put them in another place, and by the time youÂve done that a couple times, youÂll have all you could ever possibly need. ItÂs like a pyramid scheme! You could plant them somewhere in the area you plan to eventually do, but the more you improve the soil for the "parent" plants, and keep them watered, the faster theyÂll take off. ItÂs been a while since I started this! Did you go to the nursery? Glad for the rain, Skybird