aroundtheyard.com Forums

If you spread 40 yards with a leveling rake, may God bless you!

As far as your weeds, it’ll be 5 days tomorrow since seed down assuming you haven’t done anything to them at this point. You may be able to get away with Tenacity, but me personally I wouldn’t want to disturb the seed bed.

I got slammed by hurricanes Henri last night. 3 inches of water in about 12 hours. The lawn is a sodden mess. I’m fortunate that it is quite flat, though there are many areas of standing water and some other parts where water has clearly flowed. Once this dries out, is there any rehab I will need to do (light rake? Extra seed in gullets?) or do I just keep watering and see what shows up in 2 weeks?

You’re going to have to assess as you’re able. Chances are you probably have more seed in place than you think.

Washouts happen but it doesn’t mean you have to start over entirely. See which areas (if you can) have no seed, if it’s bare lay some more down. Look at your weather reports…do you have more heavy rain coming? If so, you may want to hold off until you can string some dry days together. This spring I had rain almost everyday for a week. Trying to rehab anything would’ve been a waste of time.

Hang in there!

Signs of life below the plum tree!

Aaarrggghhh! Total wash out again last night, with Ida slamming NJ and NY. I'm at a loss what to do here. I have some areas around the edges with giant erosion/ trenches, some other areas are totally bald where there was clear water flow (looks like a riverbed when the water level drops), and then some other areas have clumps of peat moss with seedlings growing.

What rate am I meant to oversee this at? 1lb/1k? Do I worry about stepping on the 'lawn' to fix the problem areas (which is most of it)? I was thinking of raking back the soil and peat moss where it has washed into the hedgerows around the edges, re-seeding the bald areas at a lighter seed rate and then topdressing with fresh peat moss.

I'm going to say that you shoulds take care of your erosion issues first then reseed. The erosion issues won't heal themselves. Worst case scenario is that you will have to winter dormant seed, and that isn't that big of a deal. Get some erosion blankets and put them down so your sloped or non sloped areas are stabilized.

I feel your pain. Mother Nature has not cooperated in the Northeast for lawn renovations. I think we have a relatively calm window in next few days to seed washout areas. In addition, as more seed germinates erosion and wash out are less likely to happen. Nonetheless, i agree with Masbustelo that you should take care of the erosion areas first.

I hit it hard this time. This is what I wish I had done after Henri too. Rake out all of those moss and soil ripples and ridges (the bottom of a river appearance), reseed, rake once more and then put down new peat Moss. I’m sure I displaced some happy seedlings during this, but they were likely all in over concentrated clumps anyway (and many seem to still be quite happy). Let’s see how it looks in a couple of weeks.

How are things fairing right now? It looks like you’ve got the seedbed squared away again, and hopefully haven’t gotten slammed by any storms!

I’d say the results are mixed. It doesn’t help that I don’t know what to expect, so that makes identifying problems harder.

We got another inch of rain in the last 12 hours, so I have some standing water in the back yard. Some areas seem to be doing very well, others seem entirely bald (though there may be some very small shoots that just don’t really show up). The areas that are doing the best seem to be shaded (does that suggest something I should be doing differently?).

I’ll attach a bunch of pictures to give a better idea of what things look like in different areas. Maybe this is what you would expect right now, I really don’t know.

Some additional pictures of the front yard (the ones above are the rear yard and north side).

Depending on how much peat moss is layered, you could have some germination that just hasn’t shot thru yet. You’re right it looks mixed, but I’d bet you still have seed underneath some of those spots. You may want to take a small section and peel back the peat moss to see if the seed is totally washed away

Slowly but surely the lawn is filling in with green shoots. Tiny green shoots. Tiny, fragile green shoots.

Meanwhile the patch of grass at the front where I threw down fescue 10 days ago already has 2” growth. Remind me why I did KBG again please…..

I have these weeds (pictured below) everywhere. They are growing seed heads. The KBG isn’t long enough to mow yet. Do I need to do anything about these weeds?

If they’re throughout your renovation you won’t be able to get at them. The ones you can reach you can pull them if it doesn’t disrupt the seedlings. If it were me, I would just let it go. You can focus on weeds later. Your first frost date is approaching and that looks like crabgrass. Once you get a frost that crabgrass will be gone. But next spring you should get a pre emergent down after the forsythia blooms in your local area.

Were you able to get Tenacity down when you dropped seed?

Thanks. I sprayed Tenacity when I seeded and that seemed to do a good job of holding this off for the first 3 weeks, but recently the weeds have exploded. I’m ok leaving it as the end is in sight (I hope), I was just a bit concerned by the seed heads. My focus is getting good establishment now so that I can apply preM in the spring. I keep thinking the first mow must be near but this pout stage is taking forever (and I had 2 washouts).

I keep thinking the first mow must be near but this pout stage is taking forever

That's why God created Alcohol

Update: back lawn is filling in nicely. Front lawn still has some bald areas where there has been runoff during all of the storms (there was another one last week).

What is the latest date I can put down additional seed on these areas? It is clear which bits are lagging, is it worth throwing down more seed now with peat Moss (or maybe straw mats as I keep getting washed out on these areas)?

You technically seeded September 3rd, so I'd say you could reseed now if you wanted. You're pushing it a bit, but seedlings can make it through winter in our area just fine. You know, what passes for winter any more. Which starts in January anyway.

I wouldn't delay. Once daytime highs fall into the mid-60's, it's starting to get a little too cool for seed to sprout quickly, and KBG is never fast. October is not an optimal month for this and it's held warm for a long time this year. There are no guarantees from this point forward, although the next two weeks look OK to good.

Current state of back lawn: