Fix an Ugly Lawn with Overseeding // Complete Step by Step Guide For Beginners

so you may have heard of the process of over seating alone but what exactly does that mean today let's talk about the quick and easy steps as you can do in your yard to improve the overall look of things with over seating [Music] so overseeding is adding new grass seed to an existing yard without removing the grass that was there this can do a lot of things to improve the varieties of grass that we have in there and sometimes can help you to change grass type over time as well today is September 3rd when I'm filming this so if you live a little bit farther south you can start this process just a little bit later into the fall right now for me right in the middle of Iowa here in the Midwest right now would be a great time to start and if you're farther north and me you want to really get this process going soon or choose a grass type that is going to be a little bit quicker to grow in first part of this process that we're going to do is cut our grass a little bit lower now what does a little bit lower mean well for most people if you've been trying to take care of your lawn through the summer a lot of times you're leaving it a little bit higher height and if not then right now it might be a little lower already and it might be a little brown it might look a little tough from summer it just depends on your conditions but if you have been cutting it taller it's a little bit more beneficial to get our lawn to a little bit of a lower height before we add the additional seed to it now this is going to make it look kind of rough for a little while that's okay do not worry about it it will bounce back then you'll be totally fine and that stress that is caused from cutting it a little bit lower here this one time will not be an issue the next step in our process is to check the lawn for either thatch buildup or a lot of dead grass that happened after summertime as I mentioned you might have had summer stress going on you might have had some areas that looked a little bit brown or you got a little bit of fungus that happened during the summer time so depending on what your grass looks like if you feel like you need to thin it out a little bit then we're talking about the dethatching process now if you actually have a buildup of thatch you'll want to go out into your yard check down by the soil layer and if you find a spongy layer of kind of brown and dead organic material there and you find more of a half-inch build-up there then you're probably going to want to do this detaching process this dethatching process can be done here with a tool that you can buy on your own it can be done with a rake manually which is some pretty tough work I will say so just keep that in mind but also you could go to a rental place and get a dethatching machine as well and come in and remove a lot of that dead material a lot of that thatch material it's going to open up your yard and have it ready for the new seed now the next process is technically isn't essential to doing over seeding but I found that core aeration can really help the process quickly core aeration is removing some plugs of soil putting them up on top of the surface letting them break down it'll give us a little bit of top dressing on the yard as well but it also opens up some holes to give us some air water and nutrients to penetrate down into the root zone of the grass and so that's kind of the whole point of core aeration but we can add it to our over seeding process here if we would like to also give us a little bit better seed bed some area there for the seed to grab on to some soil up on top of the surface and that's kind of the process of what you can do here with core aeration and over seeding together how do you know if you need to core aerate well specifically if you go out into your yard and you take a screwdriver with you and you try to put it down into the ground if you can easily put it down into the ground then maybe this step isn't essential for you right now but if you're having trouble even putting it down into your soil at all then I would probably recommend doing the core aeration process now core aeration can be done yourself go to a rental store maybe a home depot and pick up the Machine and if you've never done this before just a bit of a warning it is a workout but I can do it and I've done it many times so I know you can do it as well otherwise you can hire out this process there's many people I'm sure in your area about to offer this in the fall time so check around make some phone calls if you'd like to have it hired out now it has come to the time of our actual seating and what we're going to do is just add our seed right over top of the existing grass as I said over seeding is just adding new seed to your existing lawn if you've done that core aeration process and the dethatching or even if you haven't done core aeration and you can see down to the soil a little bit you're going to be fine there we're typically going to add our seed with some kind of spreader just helps to make sure things are done evenly also on the bag of seed that you buy typically it is going to have an over seeding rate on there compared to a new lawn rate so pay attention to the rates so if you want to get really technical with that I've made some videos on that you can actually weigh out the seed and know exactly how much you're putting on your lawn if you would like to for most people with the over seeding rates if you keep it fairly low you're not dumping piles of seed on there with your spreader then you're probably going to be okay but I really recommend measuring it out if you can it's the best way to know exactly how much you're putting on there [Music] so grass seed and grass seed types for cool-season lawns can get into a little bit of a big conversation here but I will let you know that I started out using perennial ryegrass in my yard two to three years of over seeding and it had great results but you have to understand a little bit of the downsides of rye grass in a warmer climate it can really suffer during the summertime it doesn't really like the extreme warm temperatures so if you're a little bit farther south I would probably recommend going with a tall fescue tall fescue is going to give you the option of a little bit more summer drought tolerant and it can withstand the heat a little bit more and it has a great look to it as well so if you're thinking about something a little in a little bit southern region that you have cool season lawn I would think about fescue so if you're right in the middle of the country here like I said you can choose some rye grass most people probably are going to do Kentucky bluegrass or tall fescue and if you have some shaded areas look for a shade mix as well that's probably going to have some fine fescues in there now if your up farther north in some of those northern sections then Kentucky bluegrass will do fantastic perennial rye will do a little bit better since you're not getting as much heat and depending on the variety of perennial ryegrass that you choose sometimes it also has a little bit of difficulty surviving extremely cold winters so keep that in mind as well but if you want something quick to grow in perennial rye grass and tall fescue are going to be the fastest ones and bluegrass will take much longer to kind of come in and get itself fully established but once bluegrass is there and into your next season's coming up if you're taking care of everything very well that bluegrass is going to be a great grass for you and will last a long time it fixes itself repairs holes kind of by spreading it's a great grass but as I mentioned I use printing ryegrass in my yard four to three seasons of over seeding and it did a great job for me I didn't notice too much of an issue with summertime they're mixed in with my existing lawn but just keep that in mind [Music] now you got your seed down and you want to know what to do about fertilizer so a starter fertilizer is a good option when you're growing in new seed because it contains more phosphorous which is going to give us some better root growth and give that grass seed a little bit more of a boost there to kind of get itself established now there are different starter fertilizers on the market one of them actually does have a weed preventer in it that's made by Scots so if you're looking to actually prevent some weeds at the time of seeding as well that is a product you can use otherwise any of the starter fertilizers that you get at a store or wherever you buy them it's going to be totally fine a little tip that I found in my yard over time is that I don't typically add the starter fertilizer right at the time of seating and of course we don't want a lot of traffic on the yard after we seed but before that new seed comes up probably three to five days or so it just depends I will then add my starter fertilizer at that time just so that I don't give that existing grass a huge boost of growth right away because we want that grass to slow itself down a little bit while the new grass has a chance to come up so three to five days something like that it's about the timeframe that I would add the starter fertilizer just so that we're not giving that existing lawn quite as much of an initial boost now one of the most important steps with any seating project is watering so once we get that seed down we just have to keep it wet and keep it from drying out but this doesn't mean putting so much water on the yard that there's puddles everywhere either it's kind of a balancing act so you need to keep the seed wet without drying out but not go overboard so usually with an existing lawn this is a much easier process because you have some existing grass there to hold in some moisture once that seed falls down to the root zone of the existing grass it will also hold some moisture there a little bit better so typically probably two to three times a day with over seeding so probably about mid-morning maybe 11:00 a.m. or something like that and maybe about mid-afternoon three o'clock is a good time to get some watering on there and again we need to get water on heavy enough to where we're going to keep that seed wet but not so heavy that we are going to actually drown the seed so probably 5 to 10 minutes per watering it all depends on how much Sun you're getting your location how much wind the weather there's so many factors there but that's a general rule of thumb so setting up your own sprinklers is totally fine it's what I've done in the past if you have an irrigation system makes things a lot easier but don't think that you have to have an irrigation system by any means and check out some of my videos on building sprinklers and using sprinklers to oversee it as well or do any seeding projects I have plenty of video and information on that too [Music] waiting as long as possible is going to be our best case scenario but it just depends on the grass type as I mentioned if you use perennial ryegrass like I did in the past I found that I could wait about 10 to 14 days or so before the existing grass and before the new grass was getting so tall that I really needed to get it cut wait as long as you can but don't let it get to five six inches or something like that where your existing grass is now shading out the new grass and kind of removing the sunlight from it which is going to help it to grow whatever machine you use make sure your blades are sharp and if you're using your rotary mower just try to be as gentle as you can on it and try to get on the lawn get off the lawn as quick as possible you get a good clean cut on there then through the fall time just keep up your mowing frequently and I know this is something that people probably don't think is extremely important but if you can get out there every three days during the fall that would be absolutely amazing to continually cut this get it to thicken up a little bit that's going to help you in the next season as well if you can keep that mowing up so as much as possible I can't stress that enough to keep up your mowings keep your machine running at a high level keep your blade sharp this alone is going to make a big difference in your yard this fall [Music] probably about four weeks after the process of initially seeding that's when I'd probably adil another dose of starter fertilizer or really any fertilizer at that time it doesn't really have to be starter fertilizer but that's a good time frame after you've probably mode once or twice something around there that will work well and what about weeds so when our grass is coming in we have to just kind of let it be as it is now there might be some existing weeds to come in don't worry about these too much at this time because our whole goal is that over time by adding this new seed by mowing properly by doing all these things we're going to choke out those weeds naturally and once your lawn gets thick enough it will actually choke out those weeds and they will not be able to grow so don't worry about it too much of these initial stages so after you've mowed probably three to four times usually most bottles will say at least three to four times then you can come in and kind of target some of those weeds that might have come up so keep that in mind three to four mows after you've done that you can come in and spray a little bit I usually just use a regular we'd be gone product something over the counter and just target the weeds that I'm finding in my yard [Music] that is the process of over seating alone and it might sound a little bit daunting at first but I promise you you follow these steps you will have a much improved yard this fall and coming into the next seasons as well so if you have any questions let me know thanks so much for watching this video we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Ryan Knorr Lawn Care

Views: 2,773,873

Rating: 4.8932524 out of 5

Keywords: lawn care, lawn, how to overseed a lawn, how to fix an ugly lawn, how to fix ugly lawn, fix an ugly lawn, fixing ugly lawn, overseed an existing lawn, overseed grass, lawn tips for beginners, renovating a lawn, renovating your lawn, lawn renovation, fixing my lawn, improving lawn, awesome lawn, beautiful lawn, lawn transformation, lawn before and after, fixing a bad lawn, ultimate lawn fix, diy lawn care, diy lawn, fix a bad lawn, reviving lawn, how to revive a lawn

Id: sgqfbV-ESk8

Length: 12min 49sec (769 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 04 2019