Plant New Grass in the Summer: Seed With Potting Soil
The best time for seeding your yard is very early spring or else mid-fall. However, we are working on re-vitalizing our rental property this month, and it is neither of those times. So I used a tip I’d heard to get our grass to grow even as the sun bakes the yard every day.
Pets are Hard on Grass
I mentioned in a prior post that our renters had pets and that one of the hard-hit areas was the back yard. After 5 years of dog droppings, the lawn was full of bare patches, and the area closest to the patio was completely dead. Knowing that the soil in these spots was probably saturated with urine even after I picked up the (Walmart shopping bag full of) poop, I decided not to try to get the new grass to grow in the existing soil. Not at first anyway.
Mix Grass Seed and Potting Soil
I purchased a bag of seed and another larger one of potting soil and used a 5-gallon paint bucket and a trowel to mix the two together. (Potting soil has two benefits over topsoil, which is most commonly used: it contains fertilizer, and it tends to retain moisture a little better after watering. Both help the the new roots’ growth.)
Spread the Mix Over the Bare Spots
I mixed five trowel-scoops of seed into about 4 gallons’ worth of soil in my bucket, then spread the mix about 1/2 inch deep over every bald spot. For anyone looking to replicate this in your yard, you can probably use less seed. As I was mixing, I noticed that the neighborhood birds were starting to gather on the fenceline, so I over-indulged, figuring there’d be some left for my yard even after they were done picking away as was clearly their intention.
Water the Newly Seeded Areas
After spreading the mix, I returned every day to water the yard. For the better part of the first week, I saw nothing. Then, on day 7, very tiny grass “stubble” broke the surface.
Grass will Grow in 7 Days
In the second week, that grass has grown two inches! So has all the old grass around it, so we’re going to need to mow very soon. For THAT process, we’ll set the mower’s blade at its highest setting and then continue the daily watering for at least the first few days thereafter. Then I’ll switch to less frequent watering until the grass seems to be sturdy. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for the new root structures to grow down deeply enough to sustain the grass even through summer dry spells.
Final Thoughts
Aside from the hassle of driving over to water the grass every day, this was a pretty simple and inexpensive process. So if you don’t mind the hose-vigilance (and you’re not living under a county water ban), seed those bare patches! It’s great to see the change in a relatively short period of time!
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5 Responses to Plant New Grass in the Summer: Seed With Potting Soil
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June 11th, 2009 7:38 am
Kim – This is a great tip and one I hadn’t heard before! I’ll be trying that in our yard on bare spots!! Thanks!
June 11th, 2009 9:41 am
You’re quite welcome! This was the first time I’d tried it, and you can see from the 1st picture to the last what a change occurred in just 2 weeks! So now I’m eager to hit our OWN yard – once we get this rental squared away, that is.
June 11th, 2009 11:21 am
Great tip! Thanks!
June 11th, 2009 9:19 pm
Brilliant! Thanks for the tip. I have several big bare spots on my lawn that have stubbornly refused every seed I’ve tried.
June 12th, 2009 7:55 am
I’ve had a dog burning holes in my lawn for years. My fix, which works every time is to simply rake up the dead spot a bit to expose the soil beneath, spread the seed and then water until established. There is sooooo much nitrogen in the soil that fertilizer (starter or other type) is unnecessary. The dead grass does a good job covering the seed, much like straw on a newly seeded lawn.
The area of lawn that my dog uses is the greenest and thickest of the entire yard, except for the dead spots from where he actually did his business. That’s all that nitrogen doing its job…