Accelerating planting time after pre-emergent

10 years ago

AAAGGGHHH!!! While I was at Lowe's today buying some clay-soil amendment, topsoil, and grass seed to dig up & fill in the bare spots in the back yard that were too packed to grow when they over seeded last fall, our lawn care company came & sprayed pre-emergent!!

I REALLY need to dig up these patches & add the soil amendment now, because we've had lots of rain so it's pretty soft. If I wait, I need a pick-axe to dig into it. There's no such thing as "raking" to scratch into the surface, it requires at least some digging with a shovel, even when soft.

But is there anything I can do about seeding now,(or soon) before it gets too hot to grow anything? I immediately watered the back yard after they left, so I'm hoping I diluted it a bit so it'll be less effective. We have a much bigger bare-spot problem than a weed problem- I need something to grow! ;)

Our soil: Solid-packed red clay
Our grass: Primarily tall fescue, with some annual rye that will be dying off soon, though I'll take anything!
Seed I bought: Heat-resistant blue & fescue
Amendments I bought: Claybreaker & topsoil. I also have some compost I could mix in, as well as some Soil-Moist granules.

I'm desperate! Any ideas on how NOT to wait until fall before I can re-plant those spots?

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Comments (5)

goren
10 years ago
The spreading of a good quality compost is always recommended to inject organic matter into the soil which, when carried out as a spring program, will encourage moisture retention, worm production, and good overall soil which grass seed will grow much better.

Pre-emergent is, what it means....a means to prevent the germination of seeds which come from weeds, et al, It is usually applied at a specified time when the weeds are going to seed.
Pre-emergent then is a weed seed killer. It is therefore, also a killer of any kind of seed---including grass.
I believe a minimum time of interval between application of the pre-emergent and seeding a lawn, is about 6 weeks.
This is the reason why the pre-emergent is applied when the weeds are sprouting their seeds which will deny germination of the vast majority ---but not all--of them.

The company that did the application of the pre-emergent should have known when you can safely carry out a seeding program.
Give them a call.
bvisailor
Original Author
10 years ago
They said not to plant until fall... :(
But they don't have to live with muddy dog paws every time it rains! I need some grass! :P

I tried to dig into the clay to add the clay breaker but even with the clay being wet, the shovel goes down about an inch when I jump on it. Totally pointless. I was hoping I could amend the soil & it would still be soft enough to plant SOMETHING in over the summer.

SOO, I spread the clay breaker (really just a high-organic-content soil mixture) with some of my compost on the bare spots. I'll just overseed it with a LOT of seed in a few weeks and hope that 10% or so of it manages to root itself in the new dirt. Even if it just lives for a little while I can do it again in a month or so, adding more soil & compost each time. Not exactly ideal, but it'll have to do!

Thanks!
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Pre-emergent affects the soil, not the existing plants. It creates a chemical barrier in the soil that kills emerging seedings. Go ahead and use the clippings.
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I wonder where these ideas generate from. You have a mix of things going on. The time to apply any preemergent is prior to your yard reacting to the spring time weather. The forsythia is usually the first indication of the events of spring. Thus the earliest blooming of the earliest forsythia is the trigger. You are already late for this year. The "good news" is that crabgrass will germinate under proper watering and sun conditions all summer. Chemical fertilizer should not go down until you mow real grass twice. By waiting you will ensure that you are fertilizing your grass and not your weeds. When you apply has nothing to do with root or leaf growth. I'll tell you what has everything to do with leaf AND root growth, AND it controls your weeds to boot, is setting your mower to the highest setting. By growing longer leaves you will grow deeper roots. Deeper roots can get water deeper in the soil, so you can water more deeply and less frequently. Tall grass shades the soil keeping it cooler and less prone to evapotranspiration of the moisture, so you water less. You don't have to use a weed-n-feed. You don't have to do anything until you mow (tall) twice. Then use regular fertilizer. By then some of the winter annual weeds will be dead anyway. By letting your grass grow up tall, weeds like dandelions will die out. Why? Because the surrounding grass will force the broad dandelion leaves to point up and they don't get enough sunshine. The plant will die. Any seeds that blow off the dandelion will not be able to get down to the surface through the tall grass so no new ones will crop up. And if they did hit the surface, and you did water them daily so they would sprout, the tall grass will provide enough shade that the seedling dandelion will not get enough sunlight to take root. If you fertilize in a few weeks, many of the weeds will be gone by then. Then in two more weeks, a few more weeds will be gone but the remaining weeds will be healthy enough to absorb a spot spray like weed-b-gone. This is a less expensive idea than the weed-n-feed and seems to work better. But if you water infrequently and deeply, and mulch mow at your mower's highest setting, you should not have crabgrass this year regardless of your use of preemergents. Mother Nature can throw you a curve and apply enough water to germinate the crabgrass, but that is not the end of the world. The tall grass will severely curtail any spread and may choke it out. It needs plenty of sun to thrive.
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But I'll respond. Please don't do what bvisailor did. If he/she had any long term success it was because the heavy rain washed all that top dressing away. Generally now is a poor time to put fescue, rye, or Kentucky bluegrass seed down. It also happens to be a poor time for bermuda, but for a different reason. So now is a bad time to seed. If you put bermuda down now nothing will happen until mid May when some of it starts to germinate. Then in June the rest of it will germinate. That's the only reason it takes 30 days is because most people SERIOUSLY jump the gun. If you are seeding with fescue, rye, or KBG now, you're also going to germinate all the crabgrass seed in the yard. Furthermore grass seeded now will not develop heat resistant roots by the time summer comes. The result is a crabgrass lawn by July. If you go ahead and seed now anyway, you don't need any topsoil. Grass seed sprouts at the surface. All it needs is continual moisture (just like crabgrass seed needs) for several weeks. The best time to do this is in the fall if you can stand to mow weeds until then. There are a few other tricks we can help you with. What do you want to do? If you want to do it now, we'll help you with the tricks and all the details. If you want to stretch through to the fall we will help you have the nicest weeds on the block until then ;-) Nicest weeds on the block is what I've had for the past 2 years. I'm patiently waiting for my grass to spread and take over the weeds.
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after googling "glyphosate salt", several links came up supporting lou. sorry DS, lou wins this round :) If we're keeping score, the fair thing would be to google glysophate salt and also to google glyphosate acid. Whether you use quotes or not, you'll get about twice as many hits for acid as for salt. I've done a little reading, and technically, glyphosate is an acid, but it can be used in salt form. Here is a link that explains it fairly well. Strictly speaking, glyphosate is an acid, but some glyphosate based herbicides use a glyphosateate based salt. The wikipedia article Deerslayer linked mentions that it is sold in formulations as a salt and as an acid. Everything I've read on the matter leads me to believe that Deerslayer is correct in saying that glyphosate is an acid. It can be sold in a salt form, so there is some validity to Lou's statements, but technically, glyphosate is an acid.
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weigojmi
10 years ago
Suggest you also spray shampoo on your lawn at a rate of about 3 oz per 1k sqft every month until fall. Make sure its just shampoo, not conditioner or anything fancy. The key ingredient in it is sodium laureth sulfate. I also live in NC, and also have clay soil. This helped out a lot. Measure your progress each month by stabbing a scredriver in the ground. It should continue to get easier as you go...
chiefsfan
10 years ago
TruGreen did that to my moms lawn. Sprayed Barricade in july!
To loosed clay soil there is a product called Earth Right. In no way am I connected to it.
bvisailor
Original Author
10 years ago
I tried Earth Right AND Sodium Laureth Sulfate (for which I paid a fortune, rather than using shampoo- duh!) 3 or 4 years ago when we moved here and neither of them even TOUCHED the hardness of the clay. I don't think I could get a screwdriver into the ground when it's dry unless I used a hammer drill! :P
We're building a new house so we'll be moving in the fall, so my only concern right now is to grow something green to keep the dust & mud to a minimum until then!

Accelerating planting time after pre-emergent

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goren

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Accelerating planting time after pre-emergent

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goren

bvisailorOriginal Author

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chiefsfan

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