Lawn-making involves more than doing the right thing. It is doing the right thing at the right time that counts.
Autumn is the right time to build a lawn in all of the bluegrass lands, from Roanoke south to Atlanta, westward to Albuquerque, and San Francisco northward.
This northern two-thirds of the country boasts lawns of stalwart grasses which, heedless of frost, grow most vigorously when the season is neither too hot nor too dry.
Southern grasses, the heat-loving Bermudas, Zoysia, centipede, and St. Augustine, are best started in spring.
One southern-style invader, crabgrass, has little chance in a bluegrass lawn that has been autumn-seeded.
This is perhaps reason number one for beginning now. Take advantage of the seasonal decline in weed competition that is so troublesome in late spring and summer.
There are other advantages of fall seeding, too. Soils are workably dry. Rains, when they come, tend to be gentle, penetrating.
Shorter days and cooler nights make watering a less frequent necessity. Yet day temperatures are warm enough to encourage rapid seed sprouting.
Use Quality Seed
Let us review, step by step, the action plan leading to a permanent lawn. The objective is to prepare everything optimally for quality seeds destined to establish healthy seedlings quickly.
The lawn can be no better than the grass chosen, although this is a story (see February 1957 Horticulture, “There is a Difference in Grass Seed”).
Briefly, check the seed content on the package to ensure it predominates in “basic grasses,” mainly Kentucky bluegrass and its varieties, backed by appropriate red fescue and bentgrass selections and perhaps rough bluegrass (Poa trivialis).
In original rough grading, common sense should have eliminated, in so far as possible, steep slopes and depressions where water settles. If not, a gentler grade or drainage tile, where necessary, must be established now to develop and hold a good turf cover.
One cannot gain good topsoil. Its fertility, but especially its structure, will permit much greater leeway in making a lawn. Yet subsoil, recently uncovered, has an advantage too. It contains little or no weed seed.
With topsoil as expensive and scarce as it is in many areas and probably weedy to boot, most lawn makers prefer to make the best of the existing soil.
Despite the advice of experts who urge a season’s green manuring, or thorough mixing of compost and rotted manures into the top 6″ to 8″ inches, the average homeowner is not likely to bother with these measures.
The truth is, one can come off pretty well-growing grass on subsoil if extra attention is paid to fertilizing and watering. In addition, this attention quickens the process of “making topsoil,” something grass has done naturally for prairie lands through the ages.
Above all, fertilize well before planting and sequentially after that. Then, the new grass will have comparative freedom from competing weeds.
Preparing The Soil
Soil should be loosened several inches deep. In an age of mechanical horsepower, this is perhaps best left to a tractor-drawn disc (plowing first if the soil is packed) or a rotary tiller.
A few hardy souls may still hand spade if the lawn is small. On sandy soils dragging a plow, or raking to scuff the surface, may be sufficient.
Clay Soil
Clay soil and heavier loam should not be worked when wet, lest surface clods form over a compacted subsurface. When lightly moist, most soils crumble to a “pebbled” texture, the surface consisting of soil chunks from pea to golf ball size.
A grained surface of this type needs no further pulverization, and it is preferable for seeding to a dust-fine soil which would puddle into imperviousness at first watering.
Rake Seedbed
After the worked seedbed is raked level, with no more “soft spots” or depressions requiring soil moving, distribute ample fertilizer.
With most soils, this is a good time for a generous application of complete plant food, such as a 12-12-12, uniformly spread at 10 to 20 pounds per 1000 square feet. This will work into the loose soil without harming the seed.
Time For Liming
This is also a good time for liming if a soil test shows a pH below 6.5. Fifty to 100 pounds of ground agricultural limestone for every 1000 square feet is a safe guess in regions where soils generally run acid without a soil test.
Much of New England, the Appalachians eastward, and the southern coastal plain benefit from liming.
With the seedbed well fertilized and properly cultivated, the next step is distributing the seed uniformly.
Sowing in northern states should be done in late August or early September, although middle latitudes can await the hoped-for September rains.
Seeding Cart or Spreader
A seeding cart or spreader (also used to distribute fertilizer) will do an excellent job of metering the right amount of seed uniformly.
Many garden supply stores rent or Loan these. A hand-cranked whirlwind seeder carried by the shoulder strap is less precise but quick and convenient.
If necessary to seed by hand, and you are inexperienced in flicking small amounts of seed in wide arcs through loosely closed fingers, perhaps diluting seed 50.50 with some inert material (dry soil, sand, cornmeal, or even fertilizer) will help prevent too heavy sowing.
More even coverage will result if half the seed is sown in one direction, the other half at right angles to this.
Don’t Waste Seed
Don’t waste your seed. Bluegrass, for example, contains over two million tiny seeds per pound. Used at the rate of two lbs. to the 1000 square feet, about as light a rate as can conveniently be spread, there will be 13 or 14 seeds per square inch.
To be sure, not every seed will survive or be perfectly planted, but even a single bluegrass plant can spread many inches from underground stems by next spring. Only a few pounds of good seed is needed on a good seedbed.
“Cheap” mixtures, largely of short-lived ryegrass (only one-fourth million seeds to the pound), may require several times as much seed and cost more. In any event, extra seed will not compensate for deficiencies in seedbed preparation or seedling care.
Raking or rolling will not be needed following seed distribution if the surface is pebbled as described. The seed will settle among the soil chinks, and become suitably implanted upon rain or sprinkling.
It is wise to bury the seed slightly, about one-eighth inch, on loose, fluffy, or pulverized seedbeds.
This can be accomplished by lightly dragging a link doormat or an inverted broom-rake over the area. Rolling with a light roller can then firm the soil, restoring capillarity without undoing the benefits of cultivation.
Most of the hard work is now completed, except for proper conditions for seed sprouting and seedling survival. This becomes largely a question of humidity and temperature. The season handles the latter well, but the lawn maker must provide his humidity insurance.
Mulch
One way is to shower the seeded lawn lightly frequently, following an initial soaking. That is just enough water to keep the surface moist but not enough to run off and wash the seed with soil.
But a surer way is to mulch. There will still be a need for sprinkling, but not as frequently. And mulch guards against soil wash, and seed loss, from rain and sprinkling and makes the employment of nurse grasses unnecessary.
Nurse grasses are those quick-sprouting temporary species sometimes included to hold soil until permanent grass takes over.
The lawn looks greener quicker, but the nurse grasses inevitably usurp space and fertility more devoted to the permanent grass.
Mulch can be most any inexpensive loose material. Favorites are clean straw, grass clippings, or soaked sphagnum moss.
Sometimes a loosely woven netting is purchased, or locally available by-products (tobacco stems, pine needles, chopped brush, ground corn cobs, even gravel or screened cinders) can be utilized.
The mulch must be loose enough and thin enough to allow grass seedlings to emerge. Its purpose is merely to check rapid drying, protecting the seeded soil against the wind, hot sun, and raindrop pounding.
Interlaced straws to its few straw depths, or one-eighth inch of sphagnum, would be adequate. Mulches are best left to decay, contributing humus. Thriving seedlings will soon obscure them.
Worth Waiting For
If conditions are right—warm days and moist seedbed—even the fine permanent grasses will peep through the mulch in a week or ten days.
But be patient. Even if autumn drought coupled with low sprinkling capacity stalls sprouting, good grass is worth waiting for.
The need for constant moisture may mean sprinkling twice daily in the beginning, tapering off to weekly or longer intervals as young grass extends its root system and autumn weather advances.
Be certain of irrigation capacity: seedlings are quite vulnerable to drought once sprouted.
Sprinklers that apply a gentle spray, no faster than the soil absorbs the water, are preferable. Those adjusting to part circle application can be stationed at the edge of the new lawn, avoiding tracking of soft soil.
Mow When Dry
When 2″ to 3″ inches tall, the new turf should be mowed. Let the soil dry enough so that the mower wheels don’t track. A one-and-one-half to two-inch high cut is satisfactory.
With a couple of mowings behind it, a light-rate feeding may be reasonable for the new lawn—five or 10 pounds of good lawn fertilizer. The grass is then old enough to withstand weed chemicals also.
Weather remains warm (occasional 60° days); 2,4-d treatment should include hex winter weeds such as tress or the beginnings of chickweed, dandelions, and others.
Follow package directions exactly, lest overzealous application injures young grass.
Autumn starts well-timed and should produce flourishing turf before freeze-up. Even through winter, during warm spells, there will be some growth.
Ready to obey the magic urge of spring with a rampant surge of expansion, the autumn-seeded lawn is a tremendous jump ahead of anything that can be started then, and far Icss prey to next summer’s troubles.
44659 by Dr. Robert W. Schery