First seeding.

June 2013, coming in.

Sprint 2014 after fert. Notice shade canopy.

Original beast. Early spring 2013.

>>only gets 4-5 hours of light.

Bingo. That's incredibly minimal for grass, and be careful not to count dappled sunlight as sun.

Most grasses do best in 6 hours of sun per day. Bluegrass really wants eight. Minimum.

>>My goal with the white clover was to help penetrate roots into the heavy clay.

Any green cover helps by sloughing roots and increasing organic matter in the soil.

>>Should I overseed now on Sept. 1? Do I core aerate? Should I add more fescues for shade? I've read about the

I'd look into deeper shade grasses...um, red fescue and the like. Keep in mind, surrounding trees suck up horrendous amounts of water, so watering schedules may have to shift a bit.

>>baby shampoo technique, but am skeptical. I have clay, I think the alkalinity confirms that

Nope, a sandy soil can be alkaline. Alkalinity means excessive calcium, magnesium, potassium, and/or sodium and nothing else. I sent my silt soil slightly alkaline by accident once.

>>and when it gets wet I can make a hard ball of it in my hand.

So did my silt/clay mix (much more silt than clay). The hand test is effective if you roll it into long ribbons of soil--that almost always needs clay. Even a sandy soil will ball up if it's compacted, magnesium-heavy, or totally resource deficient.

Baby shampoo works well in clay, although it does take more applications over time to achieve a good final result. The reason is that clay is much smaller but carries exactly the same charge--a partial negative exposed on the outside of the particle (the partial positive is folded to the center). There are more particles per square inch, so you need to inject more ions to bind things correctly.

However, clay is not very common at all (quite rare, actually--even most clay soils are a clay loam, silty clay, or sandy clay). Look up the jar test (let me know if you can't find it and I'll replicate the instructions) and try that. It'll give you a good idea of what you're working with.

If your soil test reported a CEC, that's also an indication of soil parameters. Soils heavier in clay tend to have a CEC of 15 or greater--and can go to 100. It's not perfect as lots of organic matter will also push up your CEC, and a soil heavy in Bentonite clay may have a CEC of 10, but it's an indicator.

>>I'm unsure if I should add more topdressing because of the slope I'm on.

Anything up to a quarter inch is OK, although for reseeding 1/8" is generally better. Burlap might be more helpful than topdressing to help keep erosion to a minimum.

Thanks Morpheus, this info is very helpful.

For the baby shampoo, how often should I apply? Every two weeks with regular water the week inbetween (I think that's what I read)?

And is it a no for core aeration?

Try the shampoo first. Some people core aerate simply to apply compost into the soil. I'm not convinced that is a good application for compost. I prefer it used on the surface only where the air can get to it.

Shampoo every 2 weeks followed by deep irrigation until you can stick a screw driver into it easily.

"Some people core aerate simply to apply compost into the soil. I'm not convinced that is a good application for compost."

I agree. I have had good outcomes improving poor soil conditions for better turf growth by combining aeration and some amendments including gypsum, sand, fertilizer, etc., but when amending with OM, I have only used and would recommend using only late stage materials like humate (brown coal) and peat. I'd be very hesitant using compost in anything but well drained sand and even then I'd be very wary of creating muck.
There might be a benefit to adding compost to the surface. Maybe rain would leach the "compost tea" out of it and into the soil leaving the fibrous materials to decay like clippings and add to the OM. That's more in the wheelhouse of an experienced organic person.

Renovating a worn lawn

If the overall grass cover of your lawn is thin or there are noticeable bare patches around the lawn then over-seeding in the autumn or early spring is called for.

Rake the area

Use a rake to loosen the soil surface and remove any obvious weeds or stones. A sprinkling of EverGreen Enriched Lawn Soil worked into your existing surface will help to provide a fine seed bed.

Sow the seed

Choose one of the EverGreen or Miracle-Gro grass seed mixtures and apply evenly over the lawn at 25g per square metre. Rake into the soil surface so that the seed is covered. For quicker, easy results try Miracle-Gro Patch Magic which contains coir and a feed to help grass grow anywhere, quickly.

Garden Grove Landscaping Inc provides a quality lawn service..

Here is a link that might be useful: Seeding Lawns

This post was edited by pauL4645 on Fri, Sep 5, 14 at 4:33

Thanks for the responses.

Dchall, if I'm planning on overseeding soon, should I hold off on using the baby shampoo until the new seed is established? Or is there no harm in doing both at the same time?

Soap is not harmful to new seed. It can actually help the seed germinate as water with a bit of soap in it penetrates the seed coat more easily.

Thanks Morpheus.

I just read you other post on the application, very helpful. Hopefully I'll get some good results!

Soap isn't a miracle cure and takes time to work.

That having been said, I use a drop of soap in 2 quarts of water to start all my annuals (I also toss a little kelp extract in for good measure). It does seem to increase germination percentage and speed slightly, but I doubt you'd notice that in a lawn seeding situation--it's too sensitive to the weather.

Soap isn't a miracle cure

Beg to differ. Compared to my previous (soaker hose) approach to softening soil, it is a miracle. It would take me all summer to soaker my soil to softness. With shampoo it softened in 2 weeks without using a lot of water or moving a lot of hose around.

If the overall grass cover of your lawn is thin or there are noticeable bare patches around the lawn then over-seeding in the autumn or early spring is called for.

Only seed in the spring if you goofed up something when seeding in the fall. Or if "Life Happened" and you lost some in the winter. Spring is a poor time to seed. Then again, if you live in Canada, you can get away with spring seeding because the summer heat will not kill the new grass.

>>Beg to differ. Compared to my previous (soaker hose) approach to softening soil, it is a miracle. It would take me all summer to soaker my soil to softness. With shampoo it softened in 2 weeks without using a lot of water or moving a lot of hose around.

Point taken. Compared to snapping your fingers and wiggling your nose and having soft soil, it's not a miracle cure. :-)

It's certainly superior to most other methods--but can still take considerable time on heavy silt soils. Mine didn't loosen in 2 weeks--more like 2 months--and even then it continued to improve with additional uses. It reached my standard after a year (but those standards are, admittedly, extremely high).

I'm excited now to try it out this weekend.

One more question and I think I'm good to go. I'm going with some fescues for the shade, but in general, are there problems with mixing too many different seed types in a lawn? When I started it was alot of perennial ryegrass, some KBG and some others I can't recall. Now I'm going to be adding in a few different fescues. Will that be an issue? Will the different varieties compete or hurt each other?

sorry, I lied, two more questions.

Are there any organic fertilizers you would recommend for helping to change soil structure compacted soils?

As an additional piece of information, the lake we are on is man made and has a clay bottom. When it rains it gets fairly cloudy. So I imagine, even if our lawn soil isn't all clay, it probably has a decent amount.

"Are there any organic fertilizers you would recommend for helping to change soil structure compacted soils?" Qualifying only because there is always the exception to the rule, all that contain OM will improve soil structure.

>>are there problems with mixing too many different seed types in a lawn?

If you match color and growth rates, not really. Yes, they'll compete. That's actually a good thing--the one that does best in a given area will dominate.

If the colors are the same, and they grow at the same rate, you'll notice--but you won't care. :)

My initial lawn, from the builder, was a tri-mix of KBG, fescue (several kinds) and rye. Over time, the KBG dominated due to my care regimen and the fact that the lawn is pretty much full sun all the time. It was never obvious that there was competition going on, and never a problem.

>>Are there any organic fertilizers you would recommend for helping to change soil structure compacted soils?

Like Yardtractor said, ALL organics will help change the soil structure over time. Without exception.

However, some are better than others because you can drop more of them without experiencing problems like the reek of decay.

Soybean meal is a great feeding for the lawn, requiring about 15 pounds per thousand square feet four times per year to give a perfect feeding. However, dropping sixty pounds per year isn't going to change the soil at any fantastic rate.

The equivalent feeding using cracked corn or corn meal (I prefer cracked corn as it flows through my broadcast spreader more easily) is 60 pounds per thousand square feet. At 240 pounds per thousand per year, it'll change the soil profile much faster.

Corn is one of those things you can also pour on, unlike most other organics.

One huge source of (frequently ignored) organic material is mulch-mowing all fall leaves. I don't get so many, so I import them from known-good lawns without problems to the tune of 100 pounds per thousand square feet per year. You have leaves in plenty right there.

My top flight year (year 2 of organics, after the soil had built up bacteria and fungi to support rapid decay) was over 1,300 pounds per thousand square feet, for a grand total of 37 pounds of nitrogen equivalent per thousand that year.

Do that with synthetics and you just sterilized the soil--probably for at least a year. Organically? The lawn flourished, as did the gardens, everything was deep green and grew like mad.

Doing that took me from an organically tapped soil in 2005 to a soil with 14% organic matter this year--and most years featured nowhere near the application that one year did!

Thanks again, all this information is very helpful.

I overseeded this past weekend. Although now I'm a little worried because temps have gone back up into the high 80's this week. Hopefully by the time the seeds sprout temperatures will be back into the 70's during the day and 50's at night.

The steps I took were as follows.

1. Raked with metal leaf rake across existing grass and soil to pull out dead grass/thatch and rough up the earth.

2. Spread seed evenly across area.

3. Applied thin layer of Scott's Turf Builder Lawn Soil which says it contains starter fertilizer already mixed in.

4. Used back side of metal leaf rake to "sift" soil and seed into existing grass and ensure even distribution across the area.

5. Applied thin layer of peat moss to help hold moisture.

I hope these steps work out okay. Please let me know if you think I shouldn't have done any of this or if I potentially missed any crucial steps. I'm trying to get a picture to post. There was a light rain that evening, and I watered a bit to make sure everything was moist. I have four impact sprinklers running for 10 minutes each at 6:30am, 12:30pm and 6:30pm. I'm thinking of cutting the 6:30am out because the whole area looks pretty moist in the morning.

In addition, as far as leaf mulch goes, how should I apply? I have a small Mighty Mac shredder and yes, TONS of leaves. I'm planning on shredding every leaf that falls on my property so I'll have ALOT of pretty fine leaf mulch. When should I apply it and how? Do I wait until the grass goes dormant and then cover completely?

As always all your advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Niles

Oh, and this weekend I plan on applying my first round of baby shampoo :)

Update after seeding 9/1/14

I am aware of the shade issue and have concrete plans to remove quite a few lower branches from the surrounding trees. Hopefully raising the canopy will help some.