Hey Morph! I found the poster child for the most unlucky overseeding of 2015.

I'll get back on this. I want to reread your previous topic(s).

Ouch, so sorry mother nature messed up your work. I'm sure it'll still look great once it comes in.

I totally feel your pain. Have had to redo various small spots I've tried to spot fix through the summer. Doing the work was an even better guarantee of a thunderstorm than waxing the car.

I don't have the knowledge base everyone else does so I'll let them chime in. Personally since you did the work today, any seed that didn't wash away still has a shot. By the look of how much stuff moved around I'm guessing a whole lot of your seed probably is floating down a river.

I feared for today's storms myself (did all my work on Monday), so I bit the bullet and bought rolls of burlap from HD. Not the most economical, but couldn't find the cheaper options quickly. My decision was to put it down in the areas most likely to be affected by hard run off AND hardest to fix if it did wash away. We'll see if that did the job after today's storms. Since I only tossed the seed on Monday, if I notice any excessively affected areas I'm going to respread some seed and sprinkle a light bit of peat (using a dustpan) back on top and hope it can catch up to the others. My fun will come when the seedlings sprout through the burlap and I have to carefully remove 800sqf of it.

Redoing all the work sucks, and wait a day for things to dry and try breaking up the peat mounds and reseeding. The really bare muddy areas will probably need more work (and more drying).

Your puddles picture: You say you rolled it. Did you soak it, rake it level, soak it, rake it level, and soak it and rake it level until it stopped puddling? I don't recall that area being part of the discussion before. Did you rototill, or otherwise dig on that spot?

Looking down the side of the house there are more puddles. You have drainage issues. That standing water has been blocked from draining by someone who top dressed the yard to the point where that side is a low spot. I realize it's easy for me to say, since it isn't my dime, but that standing water there would concern me a lot.

I think the storm was God telling you that you're going to have a bermuda lawn...and don't waste money on peat moss.

I realize I have drainage issues on the sides, houses are close together, was built in 2007, luck of the draw. And I rolled only after I dropped the seed. For seed to soil contact. The soil was pretty level, but it wasn't compressed and hard. I didn't dig or anything.

I just want a thick green lawn. I need the bare spots to go by bye.

My wife is going to kill me if I don't fix this. She would rather I left it a mess and mostly green than all these bare spots from killing weeds and dethatching.

I'm thinking I should rake tomorrow to try to redistribute everything and then throw more seed on top? Maybe?

What choice do I have? I put down starter fertilizer too. Should I wait a few weeks to add more? Only used half the bag.

@morpheuspa Any advice?

FYI, seeds were sowed around 1pm, storm hit while I was at dinner around 5pm.

You hopefully just lost the (light, airy) peat moss, and can simply rake that back over the top, although I'd sprinkle a bit of seed in the most disturbed areas as well.

That must have been one incredible storm as I've never seen even peat moss shift like that! And yes, this gives you the crown for Most Unfortunate Overseeding Accident of 2015. If the seed had been down a day or two, it would have worked in a bit and been more resistant to washing out. At four hours, not so much.

I feel your pain, wvudave.

I hope the sun comes out early tomorrow and strong to dry up all that rain.

I think avamom2012 gets the prize for the most Unfortunate Overseeding Accident 2015. She used extended control Roundup instead of regular Roundup. At least you can put more seed down.

Thanks all! Will rake and seed again tomorrow.

Post storm mess:

Ow. Ow. Ow. My back deck recorded 2 inches of rain in the last day, but it came down at a pretty nice rate. Nothing like that.

Whole sections of that are probably going to be OK as they don't show much disturbance. The areas where the ground is showing, I'd lightly (half rate) reseed and then rake the washed peat moss over the top again after pressing the seed into the wet soil.

If your weather is similar to mine here in PA, tomorrow is supposed to be gorgeous...but thunderstorms are highly probable on Saturday and Sunday. I might suggest burlap tacked down over the areas if that's the case, and then remove it on Monday or Tuesday when our weather clears. Removal isn't critical and if you don't get to it until the 19th (or 26th for that matter), it doesn't make much difference.

Should I hold off on applying starter fertilizer for a few weeks?

Saturday:

I suppose I'll rake the lawn today, and wait until Sunday to apply more seed? Will it hurt applying it on top of a thin peat moss layer? Should I seed today before raking? Both?

Looks like you're getting all the right help for the lawn.

On a different note, are you taking care of that tree with the bark up against the trunk? That bark has to come away from the trunk so the trunk bark can breathe. The trunk bark should be exposed all the way down to where the roots flare out away from the trunk. When trunk bark is kept moist by soil or mulch, it develops a fungal disease that will slowly girdle the tree.

Here's a picture of what it should look like...

Starter can technically go any time, but I'd avoid doing so on very wet soil. The next rainfall won't carry it in, it's more likely to wash it off (and that's environmentally awful).

+1 to what I previously said and what Becky said. Don't go more than half rate reseeding, once. You didn't lose all the seed, some of it dug down into the soil before it got washed and is happily wallowing in that like a pig in mud. More is caught in the peat moss and will get restored when you rake it back over.

I'd seed under the peat moss just to be completely correct about the way of doing things.

Thanks! I put some more seed down on the bare spots and did my best to rake the mess. The ground is still damp because it is overcast here today, so I wasn't super successful.

Question; Should I water my lawn today? Maybe just briefly?

Or wait until early tomorrow morning.

I'm approaching my seeding as we speak like this. Spot water any areas that dry out quickly to try to keep all the soil equally moist. Then return back to a normal watering schedule in a day or so. I'm guessing the bare ground will need to stay more moist, otherwise it could dry hard pretty quick. The areas with some grass remaining will retain moisture a bit more and might not need to be watered as often.

Again, not the most knowledgeable, but it seems logical to approach it that way after heavy rains.

I say join us on the darkside & plug in some Bermuda grass! You can always overseed with fescue in the winter time...

Hahahaha, maybe next year, if you can't beat it...

No sweat, Bermuda will still love you back even after a few years of attempted murder! Shade seems to be it's only kryptonite...

How much water should I be watering? The bare spots puddle quickly. Just enough to soak everything? Like 5 minutes per section? I have the plastic rainbird Impact sprinklers.

Worried I'm under or over watering. Did the crazy rainfall from the storm ruin the seed?

Seed is not going to be ruined, it just might sprout in some weird places the next few weeks.

+1. No problems there, the seed just got thoroughly wet. That's fine, and it'll survive the experience.

Now if it had sat underwater (without much free oxygen) for a number of days, that would be a problem.

Dave - Wow, bad luck. Instead of that weather forecast saying 50% chance of thunderstorms, it should have said 50% chance of thunderstorms, unless of course if Dave gets his lawn seeded, then 110% chance.

Thanks again everyone! As I understand it, the main downfall of overwatering before the seed germinates is that it can move the seed around. Makes me feel much better about the rain storm and my seeds chance of success.

I have two small areas that continue to puddle a bit after watering. Should I put something down over top? More peat moss? I have two bags left of cheap topsoil, but it had barks and twigs in it, wasn't very fond of it. Or should I just wait a week or so and seed those spots again later.

After tearing up so much dying grass and thatch, should I have put down more soil before seeding? I thought it was pretty level before the storm, but want to succeed if I have to do these spots again in a few weeks.

Puddling is at these locations if it helps.

You can put down a small dusting of material in those spots, but not much. Probably not even a handful. You really don't want to bury the seed. I know the waiting game is the worst part, I always wanted to be doing something to help the seed!

Now would be a good time to put some edging around those beds or put a border around the trees if you're tired of watching grass grow....

Well, yesterday I put down a little more seed on the bare spots and covered them with another light layer of peat moss. Seems to be doing well so far. Weather has been perfect for new grass seed since the storm washed me out.

I also misspoke earlier when I said my lawn was about 1,000 square feet. I measured and it is more like 1,500 square feet. I used so much seed because there were huge bare spots, and my lawn was incredibly thin.

On a side note, all of my neighbors had their lawns aerated today. They gave me a funny look when I told them I cancelled my appointment. Oh well, hopefully I'm the one with the thick green lawn come springtime.

UPDATE:

Looked PERFECT a month ago, but now starting to get a few bare spots here and there for some unknown reason. These pics taken today.