Can You Grow Grass Without Covering The Seed

you ever wondered if you need to cover up grass seed if you're going to be putting it on the ground to try to grow a new lawn whether you're trying to grow a new lawn or just do a tiny spot repair or do something in between it can be really tempting to just water the ground really good maybe throw some fertilizer on it drop some seed and that's it the vast majority of lawn professionals and amateurs out there always cover up their seed but do you need to do it that's what i really wanted to test out in this video and i want to share you my experience growing an entire lawn from seed without covering it at all now the lawn that you see behind me this is not the lawn that we're talking about this is a project lawn of mine let's head over there and i want you to understand that yes this can be done but you've got to have the right expectations you got to be very diligent because it's going to take more work in the long run than it is on day one and the final result is not going to be perfection however anything is better than nothing and once we have a line no matter how thin it may be it can be easily thickened up later on with an overseeding project which is far simpler far easier to do than a new seating project there we go all of the seed is down it looks like a nice even spread there are a couple parts that look a little bit more dense than others but i think everything is going to come in really nicely i took extra care to make sure that i brought seed right up along uh the edges of the sidewalk and the rock line and then they wanted the grass to go right up to the edge of their hedge over there so i had to get in there by hand and kind of sprinkle it myself because i have prepared the soil so well and it's just nothing but bare dirt i could take a lawn roller over this to kind of roll all of the seed into the soil but honestly once we put a little bit of water on top of it it's just going to embed itself right in the soil perfectly after finally getting the seed dropped on the ground i then started the process of coming outside to this project lawn somewhere between three to seven times a day depending on how much cloud cover we had and what the temperature was you have to sprinkle the seed quite gingerly when it's not covered up when seed is uncovered it also dries out significantly faster than when you cover it with anything so even if you're having cool days if they happen to be sunny your seed will dry out much faster than you'd like full week later on the 20th of may i went over to the property and applied my round of tenacity to stop weeds from emerging and i mixed some cider grow into the tank sprayer to help promote better rooting of the baby grass as it comes in as it thickened up when you're watering grassy that's sitting on top of the soil not covered with anything you've got to pay attention to the abrasive nature of whatever irrigation device you're using whether it be in ground sprinklers above ground sprinklers or just a hose so what i'm doing here is just a hose so the way that i deal with that is i put it on a spray but i spray it up into the air so that it kind of falls down and simulates a rain when the water droplets go down and hit the grass seed especially when the grass seed is dry and the soil has dried out then they are more apt to move around if the water is coming down straight at them they don't move so much and it actually helps grind some of those seeds into the soil that might be loose i don't ever really want to spray directly at the grass seed at ground level sometimes you have to so you make sure that you get it on the the finest mist possible and then what you're also going to be noticing without covering those seeds you see the sunny spots right now this is very early in the morning that sunny spot right there is always there it's there all day long at any point of the day that spot is basically never shaded so that spot dries out more than any other part of this lawn so although this spot that you see right here is shaded most of the time and we're getting good germination here already over there we are not so if you can those localized dry spots over there it benefits you to step outside by hand in between your uh let's call it larger germination irrigation sessions and give that extra water you're also going to want to assume that you're going to have a poor germination rate in those sunnier locations that dry out faster so that doesn't mean that you put down more seed there that means you put down the normal amount of seed and you just treat it like everything else you will get some germination and in time it will be slower than everything else but in time you'll be able to see the actual weak spots then you're going to go ahead and reseed over those weak spots after most of the lawn starts coming in so a little bit later in the season after and not we're not talking months later we're talking weeks later so within a couple weeks or so i'm going to see very clearly what spots really need a little bit of extra love and i'm going to come back over those spots and just keep working those spots and when you don't cover your seed up you're always going to have the problem birds walking all over your lawn or your eventual lawn eating the seed which is why it's even more important to get that seed to germinate as fast as possible the longer the seeds on the ground if you put it down at an in optimal time and you don't stay on top of watering the lawn that just gives you more and more days for birds to come down and eat away at your seed so that you end up having less seed that can germinate all right here we are june first we've been spraying this thing down manually many times every day we've got a lot of good germination going on in the shadier areas we've got some patchy stuff coming up in the uh let's call it over by the house where it gets more sun but as we get close there's tons of itty-bitty little sprouts and that is happening everywhere even up in the sunnier areas right now this is a shadier part of the day but you know as you can see there's plenty of sprouts everywhere all we got to do is keep them hydrated and be patient and every single sprout is going to expand to turn into multiple grass plates coming up so every single sprout is going to thicken up a lot over the next month and honestly by next year every sprout is going to be a major plant this is going to be a thick turf tougher areas include these spots that are constantly in the sun this spot isn't constantly in the sun but it's in the spun sun a lot more than i realized when we started the project sunny spots dry out so much faster so you really have to be on your game keeping things moist throughout the day there's a bird my nemesis you can't even tell but way over there in that corner there's actually sprouts coming up you can only see it when you're close until you give it a lot of time for it to start growing in like you see over there we've also had a mole start making an appearance right around the base of the stairs on both oh sides so annoying right with everything starting to grow a mole all right it's june 6 today and uh the baby lawn here is really starting to come in everywhere admittedly this lawn is coming in slower than i would like uh but honestly part of that is has to do with putting the seed directly on top of the soil instead of covering it under a layer of peat moss and it might be some slower to germinate cultivars that were used i'd never used this particular seed blend before everywhere where we get more shade the grass has been coming in thicker and faster so that's a it's a good sign most of this yard is is shaded most of the day in another week or so i'm going to come back in here and spot treat all of these tall undesirable grasses that we attempted to kill off earlier in the season there's just a few left spot treatment or painting of the leaves with a grass killer should be all that takes it'll be tedious work but it won't take too long we're getting closer we're getting closer to full coverage one of the biggest risks of not covering your grass seed is in sunny warm days and we're talking it's only like 78 degrees out here the salt the top uppermost level of soil dries out extremely fast which means the seed even though it's like absorbing moisture and holding onto it still dries out much faster in the shade however you see how all the grass is coming up very nicely it's the sunny spots that are troublesome starting to look pretty good coming up everywhere a lot of these sprouts are starting to branch off and have a couple two three leaves as each sprout matures everything is going to fill in very nicely well it's june 15th right now roughly four weeks have gone by since we've been doing the seeding project wind grass seed has just grown right on top of the dirt not covered up it just is longer and slower it's a more arduous process but as you can see the lawn is coming in everywhere i want you guys to fully understand that if you are planning to put down seed on a lawn you have to water it very very frequently if you're not going to be covering it up with peat moss topsoil compost anything at all sawdust straw all of these are options if you're not going to cover it up things will dry out and everything will slow down no matter how often you come out here to spray things dry out and it slows the process down now what you are going to find hard to see on video here is that here let me get into the shade maybe i can show it a little bit better you'll see lots of big green tufts of grass coming up but in between the tufts are lots of little sprouts just lots of little sprouts every single little sprout is going to slowly mature and fill in these spaces currently i have no concerns in regards to any spot on this entire lawn i've been out here for four weeks i've been on the the cloudy rainy days i've come out twice to hand sprinkle on the sunny warm days i've been out here upwards of seven times to sprinkle and the homeowner has even added a little bit of sprinkling in between my sprinkling sessions in these sunnier areas the areas that are more prone to drying out now this video is really all about will grass grow can you grow a new lawn can you re-seed a spot if you're not going to be covering it up certainly it is possible i'm doing it right now and i could continue documenting this whole process but i'm not going to there will be future videos about the transformation of this yard that subscribers will see i will link to them down in the description below as well but like for instance there are grassy weeds starting to emerge in the space so today i'm going to be dealing with those it's out of the context of this video if you do want to know how to deal with those grassy weeds in a new lawn scenario then follow the link in the description below to my painting grassy weeds away video at the end of this video i'm going to link up into the corner to my starter fertilization video before i even put the seed down i top dressed and prepared this line for the seeding process by making my own version my own concoction of a starter fertilizer i believe it's better what i did is a little bit harder but it's definitely better than things that are just generally on the market if you're considering killing off your entire lawn there's an entire playlist about the destruction of the prior lawn on this property and my regrowing of it in that playlist will be future videos about this property and you'll be able to see the final result of this lawn as it really truly thickens up you can see it's looking really great from down low and far away as we look straight down on it you can tell that it's still quite thin but i do want you guys especially those of you who are new to lawn care and growing grass room seed every one of these is a plant and every one of these plants is going to widen up we call it tillering out and it's going to become a bunch it's going to be growing taller over time you will not see any dirt here i'm very excited for this line i'm very excited for the homeowner here who's a friend of mine they're going to have a very low maintenance line for the many many years to come i encourage you if you are new to lawn care hit the subscribe button on this channel um but more than that like you don't have to subscribe to me more than that go into the description below there are a bunch of videos as i mentioned before having to do with all of the surrounding topics related to this lawn seeding project yes you can just throw seed on top of the dirt and make it germinate it's a lot more work however i do recommend covering it up and i have covered up my grass seed in every single other seeding project that i've ever done outside of like experiments here and there thank you very much for watching if you have any questions about the process seating alone please drop them in the comment box below that is looking more and more beautiful every single day certainly would like to see no brown patches in the middle well they'll go away in time

Channel: Turf Mechanic

Views: 70,440

Keywords: grass, lawncare, gardening, lawnmower, lawn mower, lawn care, thatch

Id: WF6RwG2DGLE

Length: 16min 28sec (988 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 24 2022