During the winter a lot of not so good things can happen to your lawn. If the snow lays on the grass for too long you can get snow mold, which is a fungal disease that causes brown circles in your lawn. These circles can be as large as 12″ or just a couple of inches. There are different types of snow mold, one does little permanent damage to the lawn, the other does serious damage to the grass plants.
The best way to fix the problem is to rake up the brown areas with a rake the best you can and simply sprinkle some grass seed over the damaged area. There’s really not a lot of magic to planting grass seed. If you have bare soil then you want to take these steps.
1. Loosen the soil at least one inch deep.
2. Rake the soil smooth, but leaving small clods of soil isn’t a bad thing. They actually shade some of the grass seeds. It’s like me or you standing under the ledge of a huge cliff.
3. Apply grass seed with a spreader or shake it on with your hand. Most grass seeds can be applied at a rate of five pounds per 1,000 square feet.
4. Take a broom and sweep over the soil pressing the seed into the soil and covering some of the seeds with just a tiny amount of soil.
5. Apply a mulch that will hold moisture. The green mulch that you can buy at the garden stores that contains a starter fertilizer actually work pretty well.
6. Straw is a bit messy and if you can keep it in place it makes a good mulch.
The Earlier in the Season You Plant Grass Seed the Better and the Faster it will Establish itself.
Spring is the ideal time for sowing grass seed. The soil is warming up but the sun is not blazing hot as it is in the summer. If you water once a day in the spring that should be plenty for freshly planted grass seed.
Snow Plow Damage?
Same thing. Just rake the area smooth, add some topsoil if need be and plant the grass seed as describe above.
Warning! Warning! Warning!
You have to be really careful, and you have educate yourself about grass seed before you go shopping for grass seed. There are really good blends of grass seed on the shelves of the garden stores, then there are some really Not So Good Bags of Grass Seeds. It’s all about what kind of seed is in the bag. I explain how to buy grass seed in this article. And more!
Ouch! Boy Oh Boy did I get Spanked!
Well, I guess it’s not easy being me. A few weeks back I wrote an article about seed, sod or hydro seed and the other day some hydro seeding gentleman took offense about what I had to say about hydro-seed. I’m not exactly your wet behind the ears garden writer who researches then writes. I write from my own personal, hands on, boots on the ground experience, so I stand by what I wrote. In my reply I mention grocery money. Trust me, one summer hydro-seeding pretty much consumed all of my grocery money for about six weeks. I know what I’m talking about.
What about Zoysia Grass? Is it any good?
A couple of years ago I wrote about Zoysia Grass. In all honesty I really didn’t think very highly of it but as it turns out this was one of the most lively discussions that we’ve had here on my blog and I learned that there are huge fans of Zoysia Grass, especially in the south. And that’s why I love you, my subscribers because you educated me! You need to see what folks had to say about Zoysia.
Questions, comments? Post them below and I’ll check back later.