By DoMyOwn staff
Now that the back yard and the side of with the Bradford Pears has been prepped, it is now time to bust out the spreader and grass seed. In this episode, Paul will talk about why he is putting down a Tri Blend Tall Fescue mix. He will also cover some basic tips when it comes to overseeding a cool season grass.
It is on crappy looking lawn! It is on! Remember this guy? Yeah, time to have some fun back here.
The time has come to aerate and overseed the back yard. Before firing up the aerator and busting out my spreader and grass seed, I wanted to do a bit of prep work before doing all of that. And that's what the last video was about. Dropping the mower as low as it could go, scalping down the yard and then busting out my rake, and raking out all of the debris that wasn't sucked up by the lawn mower.
And here's a few tips to consider before aerating and overseeding with a tall fescue blend, like what I'm about to do.
One thing that you can do, it's something that I've already done and it's something that I've preached a few times, perform a soil test, two weeks prior before overseeding.
The soil test that I performed and the results I got back from the extension office revealed to me that I need to put down a lime application back here, to raise the pH level up in the back yard and on the side with the Bradford Pears.
You might also need some fertilizer in the area that you're overseeding and this is why it's also a great reason to perform a soil test. That soil test will tell you what kind of fertilizer would be best in the area that you're trying to overseed.
Ok, because it is late in the evening and I don't want to lose day light, I'm going to fire this sucker up, and I'm going to get to work!
Well...that hard parts done. Now on to the easy laid back part.
OK so on to the reason I'm doing tall fescue in the back yard and on the side with Bradford Pears. Well one main reason, the Jungle!
It blocks a lot of the sun back here. In the back yard and the side with the Bradford Pears, maybe five hours of sun light.
Not only that, it stays relatively cool on this side of the house versus the front yard. And the reason I'm planting it at this time of the year, going into the fall, tall fescue mixes like this do best when the soil is around 50 to 65 degrees. Now, how do I know what the temperature of the soil is? Well, typically the soil's going to be that temperature when you're air temperature is between 60 and 75 degrees during the day time.
And if you'll remember in the last video, I've been waking up to consistently cool mornings in the 60's and in the day time we're maybe getting up to 78, 80 degrees.
So that tells me that I'm in the prime time to throw down some fescue seed back here!
Fall is a perfect time for a cool season grass mix like this because plant failure rates are much much lower, with these lower temperatures. If you miss the window of opportunity to plant in the fall time you can hit it in the spring, coming out of winter, when you're day time temperatures are getting into the low 60's.
Planting in the summer time, it can be done, I wouldn't recommend it. You would have to water like crazy. Irrigation is extremely important if you're planting in summer to help establish the seed in the yard.
Again to reemphasize, I would not put down a pre or post emergent in the area that you're planning on overseeding. The reason for that being, that pre or post emergent could prevent and inhibit that seed from getting to the soil and germinating and just neutralize it.
Got a 50 pound bag, kind of over kill for the back yard and on the side with the Bradford Pears, but I know I've got plenty of seed to go around.
It's recommended that I put this tri blend tall fescue mix down at three to five pounds per 1,000 square feet, so for my back yard and on the side where my Bradford Pears, I'm going to need about 15 to 20 pounds. So let's get to it!
It's a thing of beauty!
This chart on my Chapin spreader recommends that I put my dial to 20 when I'm putting down new grass seed. The tri blend tall fescue mix that I got, because it recommends three to five pounds per 1,000 square feet, they're recommending a rate anywhere on the dial between an eight and a ten. So I'm going to meet both of those in the middle and just set it on ten and throw down my seed and see what we've got!
Back yard and the side with the Bradford Pears is overseeded, good to go!
Typically the next thing that you would do is bust out the water hose and the sprinkler and water this area for about 15 to 20 minutes, just to get the ground moist to let that seed settle itself in and start to germinate.
But lucky for me, living here in Georgia, it's rain just about every single afternoon this summer and today is no exception! I've got a nice light rain coming in over the next few days and it's going to water this seed in for me so I really don't have to worry about breaking out that hose and sprinkler and doing it myself.
Now if we've done this right, it will take about 7 to 14 days for that seed to get down to the soil and start to germinate and we start seeing some growth happening.
So there we go, that's the first of many steps I'm sure to bring this back yard back to life. Pretty sure I've covered everything, as always if you have any other further questions, leave them in the comments section below, email our customer service staff or pick up the phone and give us a call!
With regards to the questions in the comments section, we're doing our absolute best, we're trying to answer as many as possible, just continue to be patient with us and we'll try our hardest to answer your question.
I hope you found this helpful, hope you liked this video, hit the thumbs up if you did. And I hope it just kind of gets your brain turning as to what you can do in your own yard. If you're not already, subscribe to the channel by clicking this button.
You can click this playlist to see all the videos in the Do My Own Lawn Care series, and click this playlist to see all the videos in the Do My Own Gardening series.
And one day I'll have the jungle gone, also, thanks for watching.
