All that work would be in vain. If you have any existing grass at all, please nurse it through the summer and reseed in the fall. Here's why. Now is the ideal time to germinate crabgrass seed. For best germination, crabgrass seed needs to be watered twice a day for two weeks. Sound familiar? This is the second reason why spring time is not a good time to seed your lawn. The first reason is that your new grass does not have time to develop sturdy roots before the summer heat hits. Then you will have both a great stand of crabgrass but also a declining turf that lets the crabgrass spread. Forget about pH for now. Worry about your grass. If you follow the following suggestions, by Memorial Day you will have a near weed free lawn that looks very nice. 1. Water deeply but infrequently. Deeply means an inch at a time, all at once. Infrequently means no more than once a week during the hottest part of July. In the summer heat I water each zone for 1-3 hours and my zones overlap by 50%. The point of this approach is to allow the soil surface to dry out completely between waterings while the underlying soil still has some moisture. Weed seeds are on the surface and they need continual moisture. When you let the surface dry out, it breaks the seed's moisture requirements and it will not germinate. 2. Mulch mow with your mower set to the highest setting. Leave it high until you come in to reseed in the fall. Tall grass survives the summer heat much better than short grass. Tall grass grows deeper roots. Tall grass keeps the soil cool and suppresses evaporation. Tall grass also will prevent necessary sunlight from hitting seedlings and letting them photosynthesize enough to take root. You can be surrounded by weedy yards and not do anything to still have a weed free lawn. Weed the weeds you can with a Weed Hound tool. After that your new watering and mowing routine will keep almost all weeds out of your yard for zero cost and zero effort. If you are willing to spray chemicals, spot spray individual broadleaf weeds with Weed-B-Gone. If you would rather spray an organic measure, try regular vinegar as a foliar spray used in full sun on a hot day. If you have already fertilized, fertilize again on Memorial Day. If you have not already fertilized, apply a half load now and the other half on Memorial Day. I pick Memorial Day because it is easy to remember the federal holidays. I use organic fertilizer on all the federal holidays. You can do that with synthetics, too, if you skip 4th of July. Summer heat problems again.

Your plan 1. Okay, check my response here for gradual mowing and order of steps. 2. Wondering why not equal parts of each? You don't need 50lbs though, only 2 lbs/1000. If I average your area to be 13,000sqft, that amounts to 26lbs. Purchase 30-31 pounds to have a little extra for reseeding missed spots. 3. Wondering why you're spreading topsoil? 4. Fertilize with a starter fertilizer 5. Either way. Slit seeding is most ideal. 6. Okay 7. I don't care for rolling but okay. Rolling isn't necessary if you slit seed. 8. 2-3 times daily depending on outside temps. If you have inground sprinkler system, maybe irrigate for just 5 minutes each time. Your questions 3. I don't understand the question either 4. Can't seed if you use herbicide for crabgrass unless it is that "R" words stuff, which will kill the whole lawn. As Tim stated, the crabgrass won this year. 5. Not easy to level a lawn of grass. Fill in low areas/spots with light layer of topsoil. 6. Refer to asnwer #2 above. 7. 1-1.5 inches. Refer to answer #1 above.

I reseeded once and it was not a good experience because the seeds went everywhere. We didn't have this problem, but we're still using a drop spreader last time we over-seeded. Can imagine getting some in the beds with the hand broadcaster we're using these days. May need to rent a drop spreader if we over-seed the buffalo grass plugs we're going to trial in the backyard next month. Assuming you don't let it go to seed, the seed bank for annual should play out by about three years. A neighbor on the block over-seeded St. Augustine plugs last fall. Pretty certain it was annual; germination rate was low from an appearance perspective, but the rye did a fantastic job holding the topsoil on their sloped lot during all those spring rains. Pretty sure there would have been very muddy walks and gutters on the downhill side with the plugs and mulch alone.

hello, I'm pretty new to acreage life, and keeping a lawn in tip top shape, hoping for some good advise. So I have just over 2.5ac of grass on my new property, it was covered pretty good with dandelions/weeds, so I applied Par 3 Herbicide last month and i think the weeds are leaving, which is good, but I do now notice some bare patches. I'd like to overseed. Heard a technique that filling the spreader/hopper with seed and good soil and broadcasting at the same time is an efficient way to go. time and protection for the seeds. I also have some Green with Envy 16-8-3 (which I think is a fast release fertilizer) Should I apply after seeding or before? I aerated shortly after moving in last sept. and dethatched early May before the par 3 application Also Im in Leduc County, and haven't had much moisture yet, it just started to rain this week (with light showers to follow this w/e) so what the best sequence for these tasks? thanks in advance! Dan I have a tow behind 100lbs spreader, a 2025R compact tractor and a Z445 zero-turn mower - if this helps in what tools I will be using. Also only rain irrigation. Can't afford to water my lawn on my cistern.