I wonder...how did your lawn turn out? It seems from the picture that more than one thing is wrong. Obviously pH, but also it could be your watering schedule, amount of fertilizer, and mowing. The cheap lime is ok but you might not get great success with it. I live about 60 miles from you and have compact clay as well. I use the fast acting lime every 4-6 weeks (1/2 the recommended values to avoid rain runoff). But it seems because your pH is so low that you aren't watering your grass (usually city water is hard). For watering if you have compacted clay soil, you should make sure to water in the AM (before 9) because it looks like your soil easily dries out. This way you'll give roots access to water in the mid-afternoon during "respiration" which is when most water in the blade is lost. Plus you'll dry out the top surface of the ground to discourage weeds and disease/fungus. Plus the high humidity/dew in the AM lets more of the water get into the ground. Water every 2-3 days during the hot summer months...if you water and your grass is beginning to turn brown, you should have watered the previous day - but never water the lawn everyday. You'll need to water long enough to get down to the root zone (water in the AM and in the PM dig a small hole and see how deep the water went - if it didn't go 2-3" deep, try watering longer until it gets this deep. if you look at the soil after a nice soaking rain, 3-6"+ of soil will be damp). For those bare spots, it's best to use a water-absorbing coated seed - those seeds tend to grow much faster than regular seeds covered in peat moss. You can use these in the middle of summer as long as you water the spots everyday for the first 2-3 weeks. I've seen these seeds germinate in 4 days (Scotts brand). For fertilizer, a balanced fertilizer is best, i.e. 20/20/20. You might have to go to a specialty store for this. Fertilize a little below the recommend settings every 4-6 weeks. Finally, for mowing make sure you set your mower as high as possible. That will help keep the top 1" of soil from drying out so soon and help new seedlings grow.

What did you mean by Burpee? That was the brand of seed you used, or you used the Burpee seed starting system? I started plants from seeds for the first time this year. I used the Burpee seed starting kit (tray of 72 soil pellets on a capillary mat, with a water reservoir beneath, no heat lamp, just set next to a window) and had great luck with zinnia (of course), shasta daisy Alaska, and hollyhock. At first, I thought the kit was a huge disappointment, as I got great germination rates but it was almost impossible to remove the seedlings without killing them. What ended up happening, though, was that after mid-late spring, I ran out of steam planting stuff outside, and I just left my seed tray outside, watering regularly. The seedlings continued to grow. Then, I went on vacation for 10 days and so I set the seed tray on the ground in a sunny area where it would get watered by our sprinklers which were on a timer. The plants grew like wildfire! That was early July. I finally got up the energy to plant the plants - the hollyhock seedlings are huge (I never thought they'd finally get big), and I repotted each shasta daisy in a 6" plastic pot leftover from other perennials I bought at a garden center. I now have about 16 plants in such pots - they're growing rapidly and I will plant them in the ground in early August. No, I won't get blooms this year, but I should get them this year. Delayed gratification. The zinnia, it goes without saying, are doing fantastically - if only they were perennials. I've also just planted purple coneflower seeds directly in the ground per the seed packet instructions, and hope they will come up, as it's very warm out and I am keeping them moist. I know that my other experience won't help you this season, but it's an approach you might want to take next year. When I transplanted seedlings into the ground in spring when the were very small, almost none lived. Now that they are much larger they're thriving after transplant. I wouldn't have thought seedlings would do well growing for 3.5 months in a 1" cell, but they did. I've got over $100 worth of shasta daisies for about $1. Worth it? In the end, yes. Of course $100 isn't all that much and it might have been easier to just buy the plants, but now that the plants are larger and look like they'll survive just fine, I'm satisfied with the effort I put in. I think I'll try it next year. It's an ongoing process. I'm not basing my entire garden on seeds, but since I'm in it for a fairly long haul, I figure I can help fill out my garden cheaply doing some stuff from seed.

Hi, I'm from the tree forum. It is recommended that one soak the Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) seeds in ethyl alcohol for about 15 minutes then rinse with water. I had some ethyl alcohol but ran out so the last time I used a cheep drunk liquor called "Everclear". Anyway, after you rinse them, soak them for 24 hours then drain and rinse again and soak for another 24 hours. Drain the seeds and pat them dry. Take a little plastic baggie and fill it with vermiculite or similar that is damp. You want it to be damp and not moist or wet. Place your plastic baggie in the frig for 90 days and that should satiate the requirement for cold stratification which breaks embryo dormancy. There are those who have equally good results by soaking the whole cone in water for 3-4 days then rinsing the seeds and placing them in a damp (not moist or wet) paper towel and sticking that in a plastic ziplock in the frig until spring and then you can just direct sow them into the ground. Bald Cypress prefers "wet feet" although it will tolerate dry soil as mentioned by swamptromper. I generally prefer to plant trees where they are most likely to thrive as this insures they are less stressed which means they can better withstand insects and diseses. Best wishes to you.

Hello all! Your postings have inspired me to try and grow my own Bald Cypress trees from a native species right here on the beautiful Chickahominy River in James City county, Virginia. Thanks for the help. I am new to growing anything, and don't have a clue so I do have a few questions that I hope you can answer. I followed Resin's good directions to the T, and have enjoyed trying. My question/confusion however is as follows: When should I expect my Bald Cypress seeds to germinate? This past fall I put a lot of seeds into a zip lock bag with sterlized damp sand, and placed them in the bottom of my fridge. The temp remained ideal as Resin stated at around +1 degree Celsius. It's now Spring here, but my seeds have not yet germinated. I checked a couple months after putting them in the fridge as Resin mentioned but nothing had happened. I'm confused should they have already germinated or should that happen once I take them out and sow them? Sounds silly to you I bet, but I have no idea? Thanks again for the help! Stew Thiel