Dormant grass seeding can help you get the lush, green lawn you’ve always wanted.
By now, you’ve put away the lawn mower and drained your garden hoses for wintertime storage, but there’s one last outdoor task you can complete this season: dormant grass seeding.
Giving your lawn a little attention now can give you a great head start on next season’s growth.
What Is Dormant Grass Seeding?
Dormant seeding involves planting grass seed in the winter months, when the seeds are not yet active.
The idea behind dormant seeding is to give the seed a chance to become embedded into the soil before germinating. As the ground freezes and thaws, cracks form that allow the seeds to settle further down into the soil. Eventually, the shifting soil covers the seeds. This protects them from the usual predators and hazards, like birds, wind and rain.
Put your grass seed on patchy, bare areas, and use it to generally thicken up a sparse lawn.
When Should Dormant Seeding Be Done?
For this technique to be most effective, don’t lay down the seed until the soil is cold enough to prevent the seeds from germinating. After all, you don’t want the grass to grow until the spring.
In northern Utah, dormant seeding can be done anytime from November through February. But recent research at Kansas State University indicates that February may be the best month for dormant seeding in our growth zone. After studying lawns that were seeded in each of the winter months, the researchers concluded that those seeded in February had a coverage of 73 percent, whereas the lawns seeded in other months had coverage of less than 50 percent.
Tips for Successful Grass Seeding
To improve your chances of a green lawn come springtime, ensure that the grass seed is in direct contact with the bare soil. You may want to rake or till the area to agitate the soil and remove rocks and debris. Or if your soil is highly compacted, call us for core aeration service before you lay down the seed.
Be sure to use the amount of seed recommended on the package, and remember that more is not better, but less will not produce good results either.
After you have finished laying the seed, lightly rake the soil surface to cover it. Then simply stay off the lawn as much as possible.
Over the next couple of months, the seeds will settle into the soil on their own — you don’t need to take any other action. Make sure to hold off on using any weed killers in the areas you are seeding until after germination has taken place; however, feel free to add some fertilizer.
Would you like more tips on keeping your lawn healthy and looking its best? Contact All Green Pest Control and Lawn Care, serving the communities of northern Utah, for advice on all of your pest control and lawn maintenance issues, including the best approach to grass seeding.
Try Dormant Grass Seeding Now for a Green Spring