THEY SPROUTED!!!!
I thought they might've yesterday, today it's unmistakeable. A green haze over most of the area. Definitely a bit choppy, robust patches here and not much happening there. But they sprouted!!
<happy dance>
Soz--
Glorious! Absolutely glorious!
Here are the before and after pictures, finally (just had them developed):
All prepared and freshly seeded:
Sprouted:
Unfortunately, the after-after picture is much sadder -- things have gotten way wild back there since the discovery of the mother of all poison ivy vines.
The good news is that there is a lot more grass still on the ground than this time last year -- we've had a few torrential rainfalls and they haven't had the same effect. Plus, the new grass is staying greener in the shade than the old grass.
Edit: some snipping
Soz, is that new grass the Scotts Shade Grass?
Thanks again for your excellent advice. Tell me more about what to do next -- I re-seed in the fall, right? If so, can you tell me when "fall" is? (September, November...?)
Rule for Gardening Novice:
When the local stores put grass seed on sale, it's time to plant grass seed.
Even with the poison ivy lurking, you've created major improvements.
Hold your dominion.
I still have some of the grass seed I put down in the spring -- CAN I put it down now, or is that a bad idea? If so, is it because a) the grass seed is no longer viable, b) it's the wrong time of year, or c) something else?
I just got that area all nice and cleaned up, including patches of newly disturbed/ bare dirt where weeds were recently, and would like to go right out and put grass seed on all of those patches... unless it'd be a bad idea.
You can put it down now as long as you can keep it watered as it will still get plenty of cooling from the shade. September, once it cools down a bit might be better, but then you'll be dealing with leaves falling on it and blowing/raking before it had a chance to set good roots. I'd go ahead now as long as you don't have 90 deg weather in the forecast for a bit.
Thanks J_B!
The forecast is for the lowest temps in a really long time, and rain too. I realize that the rain may wipe out the grass seed, but I think I'll give it a try. Doesn't get to 90 (and then just 90) until Friday.
just my experience but I have found that seeding a sparse lawn is best down late in the fall (leaves raked away) and allow the seeds to germinate over the winter.
Oh really? What about in this zone? It's freezing for a lot of the time, can't imagine that would be encouraging for germination. (Columbus is zone 6.)
I think I might get more seed on sale as Noddy suggested later on, too.
Basically, the yard is pretty well covered with grass, if it's more towards brown than green, (MUCH better than last year, probably 3X as much coverage as this same time last year) but thought it might work well to cover the nice disturbed areas (where I pulled up weeds) with grass seed to stave off weeds taking root instead.
actually the freezing and thawing of grass seed helps germination and as soon as the soil warms up in the spring voila, new grass.
I started to look this up last night on link's about Scott's seeds..
I didn't find the company's own website, but in the meantime I found one fairly close to the top of the google list under Scott's shade grass...
that said seeding between mid august and mid september is optimal, and something in spring is next best... this was, I think, generally speaking - not sure if it matters re summer and winter grasses - and I think Scott's may be a mix...
On a tangent about Grass and Me -
I know close to nothing about lawn grasses, as I practiced for years in Southern California where in the beginning I did a lot of housing tract planting, for which we didn't do the grass - just for the models, and that was sod, and some residences or commercial places, and they were sod. We generally used marathon fescue, which I remember could take some shade. We tended not to put lawn in shady areas, except for when a tree canopy would eventually grow to cover a fraction of the lawn... since that makes irrigation trickier re timing and valves.
Eventually I caught on to the idiocy of planting great amounts of grass in a semiarid desert and when I went on my own, only did the occasional small lawn if a client wanted one. A small lawn can make sense to me, in these climate conditions, for children to play, for a dog to laze about on, for a kind of visual surcease for the adults.... but I as a subject matter of interest, I left the idea of the lawn and its care to others.
Different situation here in my much wetter northern home - grass only needs summer water, and many people - actually most people - just let them get brown for a few months. But I still don't specify that much grass, just the occasional lawn in a sunny exposure, and for that I am not full of advice, using my reading time for other matters, such as native clumping grasses, which are almost another whole subject.
Ohio... it rains there all year round, or else it snows.. so if I were there, I'd be needing to learn all about the different lawn grasses that are rated best now.
soz - in this zone - which is quite similar to yours, grass seed is put down between about Sept 15 and Oct 15 for best results. The seeds sprout, and the roots develop over the winter.
The fat grass recipe I posted on the first page is recommended for September/October use - preferably after first frost.
Following Osso's lead, I just took a look at the back of my package of grass seed (duh, oh well, I'm slow sometimes) and it says:
Spring and fall are the best time to plant grass seed, because seed germinates best when temperatures are between 60 degrees F and 80 degrees F.
["If you plant in spring" snipped]
If you plant in fall:
Plant when daily high temperatures are consistently near 80 degrees F. In many areas, this is actually late summer. Seeding be should completed 6 to 8 weeks before temperatures are expected to fall below 40 degrees F.
So that actually sounds really encouraging for doing it around now. I averaged out high temps for the next 10 days (according to Yahoo) and it's 83. That's close enough that, in addition to freshly disturbed earth, I think I'm gonna go for it.
Checked for an expiration date on the package and it says "Sell by September 30th, 2005." Oh, and then it has different sell-by dates for different states, and Ohio's group is "Sell by March 31st, 2006."
Groovy.
All done!
I might get a whole 'nother bag for good measure later on, but I used up what was left in that bag (remainder from spring seeding) and if covered the disturbed spots nicely. I winced a bit while watering (I want the weeds to stay gone!!!) but there is quite good coverage overall and I don't think I'll need to be as standoffish this time. (Last time I avoided walking on it for a long time, and in that time the poison ivy grew, too, and then I couldn't mow because I didn't want to send tiny poison ivy particles anywhere, and then...)
I can't figure out how to find out when the temps will go below 40. I found monthly averages, and with an average of mid-50's in October that probably includes some 40's, so that would be good timing according to the package.
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