1. Under these conditions when should I expect to see Tall Fescue germination? I would expect you to see most seedlings emerging 5-8 days after planting. 2. As long as the ground does not puddle up, the seed will not rot correct? Yes, keep them constantly moist (the seedcoat will adsorb water, so it's not like you have to water 10 time a day). On a hill the amount of water for rot would probably cause erosion of the seedbed. 3. What is a sure sign of when the ground needs water? When the soil is dry to the touch. 4. Thoughts on Tall Fescue? Pros/Cons? Pros: Quick to germinate and establish, newer cultivars have good color and texture, most cultivars are shade tolerant, good drought tolerance when mature, wear tolerant. Cons: Bunch type grass with minimal spreading which usually requires periodic overseeding, some cultivars are coarse textured, some are lighter green, susceptible to brown patch. 5. Some seeds are laying right on top of the soil - Will these still germinate? If they are kept moist, they should, but it's not guaranteed. This is why rolling or topdressing is often recommended with TF, better seed to soil contact and better moisture retention.

Absolutely keep watering. Fescue seed is very well characterized. It will not germinate until the second week, so next week you will start to see new seedlings. Then by Saturday you should really see it come in. By the 3rd week it should be up at 80% of germination. I strongly disagree with repeated top dressing of a homeowner lawn. Here is a picture of a yard where they topdressed 1/4-inch every year...for 40 years. You can see where it is piled up about a foot against the stop sign, and they had to install landscape edging to keep the soil from flowing onto the sidewalk. Adding new soil increases the chances of bringing in weed seeds and adds nothing of benefit to a healthy soil. If you really want to top dress with something, use 100% compost with no sand or top soil in the mix. Here is a picture of a yard that has never top dressed with any sand or top soil. This is what it should look like. Of course the types of grass are different allowing one to be mowed at 3/4-inch while the other is mowed at 4 inches, but the lack of mounding is pretty clear in the second one. If you want to save yourself some time and money, don't use compost either. The idea of compost was the mainstay of organic gardening during the Rodale period from the late 1920s through the 1990s. In the 1990s it was discovered that the reason soils were either healthy or unhealthy had to do with the near 100,000 different species of microbes living in the soil. Before that it was believed that there definitely a dozen different species which can be grown on a Petri dish and there may be as many as 50, which for some reason were not able to survive in a laboratory. But DNA testing proved there are more like 100,000 species. We are not in the transition stage from Rodale to what I believe could become known as the Ingham stage for Dr Elaine Ingham. What we know now is that simply feeding the microbes already living in the soil is plenty. When the microbes at the very surface are well fed, the microbes living in the soil below feed off of the waste products of the surface microbes as well as the dead surface microbes themselves. Those well fed subsurface microbes produce plant food in response to the plants' excretion of sugars from roots. This biological process will eventually be taught in schools, but for now it is considered "miraculous." If you want to read more about it, please click here. Get comfortable because there are at least 50 pages including the images. You can feed your soil microbes by scattering organic fertilizer or, as many of us are doing, livestock feed. If you look at the ingredients of organic fertilizer and livestock feed, you'll see the same list of materials including soybean meal, alfalfa, corn, wheat, cottonseed, flax, and other feed stuffs. Look at the label of any dry dog or cat food - same ingredients. These provide basis food to soil microbes. Food means protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes. The difference between these materials and compost is compost is the result if you allow these food materials to decompose. Whereas if you apply them directly to the soil, you get the full benefit of the food immediately (well, 3 weeks later) in the form of green grass. Mother Nature has been feeding Her plants like this for billions of years. It took us until the late 1990s to figure it out and a few more years to develop a simple plan to try and duplicate what She does. Now here is a picture of a test of alfalfa pellets used as the only fertilizer on a zoysia lawn. This picture was posted here by mrmumbles in June of 2011. The fertilizer was applied in mid May. You can see the improved color, density, and growth. I use this picture often to demonstrate that these ground grains are real fertilizers and not gimmicks. If you try this test this time of year your results will vary considerably from mrmumbles post-springtime test. Soil temps are dropping now which reduces the activity level of the microbes; however, the microbes still need food for the winter. Just don't expect to see such a miracle in your lawn right now. For many of these same reasons, I don't like core aerating either. Bringing up the cores resurfaces old weed seeds for germination. It also does not allow as much air in as you think. I used to have the math on this handy, but we've pretty much stopped talking about it. In essence, the cores allow a certain amount of oxygen to the soil. But when you have hundreds of miles of healthy but microscopic fungal hyphae opening up the pores in the soil, the benefits are much more real and even noticeable in the soil. You get these results with microbe food (the grains listed above) and with proper watering - not with core aerating. Sorry for the lecture but I really don't like the idea of top dressing with anything unless it has protein in it. Anyway I believe your seed will be fine. What you have lost is the opportunity to reseed if this does not come in or if it comes in thin. Next year, get started renovating in August.

I don't know what part of the country you live in. Fine fescues do not withstand heavy traffic. Mowing height is important if you are limited to only 4 hours per day of full sun. The recommended mowing height would be no lower than 3 inches as the longer the blade, the larger the leaf surface is that captures sunlight this will help the lawn do better. Watch the watering too much is not good. If you want a fine bladed lawn you can plant the fine bladed sod and later you can over seed with kentucky blue grass to help the lawn self mend, but you will have to wait 3 months before seeding as the sod grower used a post emergence weed control that will prevent seedlings from germinating. If later you do not like the fine bladed lawn you can overseed with the wider bladed fescue. There is a fescue you may want to look into, grown by pacific sod in california called medallion extreme.

Tibb, I'm definitely in the fescue fan club over Bermuda. To each his own I guess. Here's what I do and it works very well. Plan on overseeding every fall with a different variety of fescue. Never cut the grass short even in the spring. The more green is on top the deeper the roots grow which gives them better access to water when things get drier. It will go dormant in the summer but should bounce back later when things cool off. Also cutting it high will block out weed seeds from the sunlight which they need to germinate. If you could look at my lawn compared to my neighbors (who cuts his fescue short) you would see 10-20 dandelion tufts sticking up in mine compared to his hundreds. Plan on tolerating a few weeds. Clover is good, dandelions can be picked out as needed. Crabgrass is a pain but a pre-emergent will help some - too late for that now. Don't water in the summer you'll just stress it out let it go dormant. I don't water my grass unless I've just planted seed. I don't fertilize mine because I haven't needed to. I've overseeded each fall with different seeds and the lawn is looking pretty good. If you mow high and have Bermuda creep in you can control it some because the fescue grows taller and the Bermuda has a harder time. Now if I could just get rid of the Bermuda in the vegetable garden!