Hmm. The only thing I can think of doing would prevent germination of your desired seed.

Maybe water like crazy for a few days and hope for quick germination of the bad seed and kill it w/ roundup? Then put your good seed down?

Anyone else?

Kill the contractor, incinerate him and spread his ashes over the lawn while doing an appropriate dance.

Seriously, I don't know what is best to do. But if that were my yard and I didn't have any better advice, I would hope he put down a "contractor's mix" of mostly fast germinating annual rye or other crap grass, and wait a week to let it sprout, then kill the sprouts with roundup, and seed on the heavy side right away.

Then I'd consider suing his a$$, but eventually would decide against that because there is really no way to convince a court of the damage he caused. Bah.

I feel for you. Good luck!

I think paul's appraoch iâ¬s a good one. Not about killing the guy because then youll never find out what the seed was and not sue him, because anybody who's ever sued anyone before knows that costs a lot of money and if you lose it will cost you even more money. And you will.
But about the let it germinate part. Then kill it and seed at the reccommended rate. After about a week to be safe.

I also don't think you should worry so much about a contractors mix in the north, it is the southin' cheap crap seeds you have to worry about because that stuff can be imposserus to kill

I recommend spectracide grass killer it is better than roundup

Sue him for putting down seed? This is a gigantic pain in the ass. And I would be pissed. But its grass seed guys. No one got killed (yet)

What I was trying to say is that you might think about suing him when you're all p----- off, but then when you cool down and face the reality that you are likely never to recover anything, you will ditch this idea fast.

This coming from a lawyer...

Contractor's mix often contains both annual and perennial components.

Just curious what you mean by "against my instructions." You specifically told him not to do it, or it wasn't discussed and you didn't expect that was part of his job? Sometimes, contractors will do this and consider it part of their obligation to replace the turf they ruined. He should be commended for being so thorough and accomodating. He doesn't know anything about grass, only called himself doing well by his customer. On the hand, if you specifically told him not to plant grass seed, then hold him responsible and make him get it up and replace your soil.

At any rate, mid September is normally considered the cutoff time. Many people seed later and into the end of September with success. I can't say how successful you will be, but I think waiting until it all germinates then killing if off is a another consideration.

I'm having a tough time swallowing that I might need to let this seed germinate and then kill it. Call me delusional (my wife is) but I might try to manually sweep/dig up as much seed as I can tomorrow morning and bag it.

To clarify, the contractor (mostly) only threw seed down on the parts of lawn that had been damaged. See link below for a photo of the damage prior to it being graded and seeded.

BTW, I told the contractor not to seed at all. I understand he had good intentions by seeding, but now I am in a bad spot.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:118695}}

My advice would be a little different:

Take your good seed, and seed right over what he did. Ignore what he did.

This will be the result: the lawn will grow, will fill in.

A possible, and it could even be 'probable' result: parts of what grows up will be annual ryegrass. That's from the 'contractor's mix'. That annual grass will only last one season, and it will die off, naturally. The better grass will remain, and is already growing, when next season gets here.

So now let's assume you have a slightly less-than-perfect mix in that section of the lawn. It still looks like a lawn, rather than looking like a construction project.

If you keep the area well-fertilized, the KBG will dominate the other grass. KBG spreads, fairly aggressively. My guess is that over two, or three, seasons, that patch of lawn will convert itself to blending right in with the rest of the lawn.

You cannot assess that now. But you can plant, successfully, now. You can re-assess where you're at next year (or the year after) by planting now, but I'm not sure you'll get a good result if you delay planting by the week or two or three that would be required to let the sub-standard grass germinate, kill it, and start over.

If you have to kill it, and start over, do all that next year. This year: get the good stuff on the ground, and give it a chance to compete.

What type of grass is the rest of the lawn? From the photo, it looks "ok", but nothing special.

Let's just say he hadn't dropped his own seed and you were overseeding (the rest of the lawn) and seeding (that spot) today. If you go at that one spot (the spot he ripped up) with a high quality seed, you might have problems anyway, since that spot will be high quality seed and the rest of the lawn is whatever it is. Since you said you are seeding this weekend, I assume you are not rounding it ALL up and reseeding. In that case, I assume that overseeding the entire lawn will result in a lawn that won't look too different in that spot, or at least no more different that it would have looked had the contractor not spread his own seed.

If you had skoot_cat's lawn (or one of those people here with a tremendous, picture-perfect lawn, I would be concerned. But since it looks like you are trying to overseed to perk up a nice, but not insanely nice, lawn, I think you are going to be fine.

did you try a leaf blower to disperse the seed? Try blowing as much as you can right up against the house or patio?

Don't forget Morph's lawn. His lawn is picture perfect, we're just waiting for the pictures to grow a little bit........and Dlenarts pictures are growing, and Egghead's pictures are growing. The lawns are picture perfect, but it takes a little while for the pictures to grow in.....

Don't forget Morph's lawn. His lawn is picture perfect, we're just waiting for the pictures to grow a little bit.

Blush! That's the nicest thing anybody's said to me this month! Thank you!

But yes, we're all waiting for our lawns to grow into the pictures in our heads. That takes a while.

An update:
First, thanks for all the suggestions.

I ended up blowing off some of the contractor's seeds with a leaf blower. Then I put down a thin layer of compost, re-seeded with my quality blend, and put down starter fertilizer.

The contractor said he seeded with "Tri blend Rye". I guess this is a perennial Rye blend? Will PR die in NJ (zone 7) in about a year?

I have my fingers crossed that my TTFF/KBG outcompetes his Rye. How can I tell the difference between TTFF, KBG, and Rye seedlings?

Have you tried the contractors license board? My "speed reading" didn't detect mention of that option. When I reported a landscaper, the agent at the contractors license board told me that the majority of their complaints are about landscapers.

Long story made short, the landscaper was brought to trial by the district attorney and he was sent to prison for fraud.

Hi,

This might help with your landscape contracting needs or questions.

It is a link to a list of landscaping companies and designers.Good luck with your troubles.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.myprimebuyersguide.com/ca/santa-rosa-landscaping.html

Does anyone know how jb did with this last year?

egghead2004, it came out pretty nicely last year. A lot of the PR that germinated ended up dying in the heat of the summer, which was fine with me. However, I decided to go to an all KBG lawn this year because the Tall Fescue in the blend looked really out of place. I renovated the entire thing last month with elite KBG...but that's another story.

The way to prevent most of it from coming up would have been to till it deeply. A real pain.

The perennial rye actually may do fairly nicely for you most of the year. I had some and loved it, except during the hottest time, when it went brown.

I agree with phils... overseed with the quality seed. The contractor's seed is mostly rye and you'll notice it the first year. By the second year, the quality grass should fill in and predominate.

Take biblical proverb of wheat and the weeds. Allow them to grow together nice and tall, pull out the cheap grass which will grow much larger and thicker. Then drop some premium seeds into the bare holes.