Slit Seeder to Overseed Lawn

Our front lawn has mostly crabgrass around the perimeter. I overseeded last year late in the season after mowing low and I think that most of the seed ran off or did not make contact with the soil and never germinated. I'm going to try it again and was thinking of renting a slit seeder. Has anyone tried different makes or models and can offer some advice as to which model I should look for when renting? I doubt that they all work as well.

Hi Pete, as much as you want to reseed areas of your lawn, the seed wont take/germinate IF it is not in contact with the soil, that is a no brainer, I would suggest you cut the area of grass down as low as possible as you did before, but you need to either top dress the area to be seeded with new soil / mix of soil and horticulture sand from garden store, or some compost BUT the seeds needs contact with some form of soil, but no competition from the strong growing grass already there.
All you need do is strip off the grass in the area you want to reseed, by doing this, add enough soil, sand mix ect to make the fresh / bare area level with the original lawn so you don't end up with uneven areas that either cause people to trip or when you run the mower over the area you don't re-strip the newly planted grass all because the mower has to rise or dip into the new grass..

Hope this helps a little to sort your problem.
Best Regards. WeeNel.

Thanks for your help WeeNel,
Top dressing makes a lot of sense. I also read about dragging a mat behind the tractor to knock the seed down to ground level and this makes sense to me.

Also, the soil down near the street seems to be very sandy with a lot of ants, whereas the rest of the soil is dark and rich - looks like excellent top soil. Did the ants eat the organic matter, or did the heat from the street bake it off?

Still considering the slit seeder, anyone have suggestions?

Forgot to ask you "what is a slit seeder" have never heard of that term before.
I'm also curious as to you saying you will drag a mat behind the tractor, I'm missing out something here as any lawn that I have seen that is meant as a focal point, last thing you would do is take a tractor over it or worse, drag a mat, this seems quite severe treatment for any presentable looking lawn BUT hey perhaps I'm living a sheltered life and have been too engrossed in caring for a sort of lawn that is on show rather than a field type green patch.

The ant infested soil close to the street could be either ran out of good soil when the lawn was laid, or if the lawn is on a slope, the rain and any watering could cause the soil to be leached away as natural run off. OR whoever laid the lawn never covered that area for whatever reason like wishing to make a flower border along the edge of street edge.

I have found that ants just love the heat gained from the concrete or whatever hard material the streets are covered with, and sandy soil is a favourite for ants, they don't like any soil that hols onto moisture as described for the dark more fertile soil, you can either lay down ant killer powder and where you lay this, try cover it with a flower pot and a heavy stone on top or a flatter plastic container weighted down as you don't want any other animals come along a like the killer but the ants will bury under the flower pot / container and take the killer back to the nest where they feed it to the queen and other ants eventually killing the nest but you may have to keep repeating this.

Hope this helps you out and you get sorted.
Good luck and Kind Regards.
WeeNel.

I tried to google slit seeder and came across this thread and have quoted from it here:
He says that he's never seen a true slit seeder for rental but rather I guess a cheaper type.
Original thread: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lawns/msg0710532519292.html

A true slitseeder has fixed blades, a separate set of discs, and metered tubes for dispencing seed. They are self propelled. They are expensive machines and very seldom available for rental--I've never seen one for rent in my area. An alternative, and what many rental places call a slit seeder is actually a verticutter with a drop spreader attatched (Ryan Renothin, Billygoat and Bluebird are common rental models). It has fixed blades to produce slits (vs flail blades that are used in dethatchers). They are commonly available for rent. They are almost never self propelled, but some newer models are. I've used the Renothin and Billygoat with very good germination results--much better than when I've just broadcast, rolled and topdressed, but rather than use the drop spreader, I broadcast the seed separately over the yard and then ran the machine over it in two passes at a 45 degree angle to one another. Easy? Over a flat, loamy soil, yes. If the soil is hard or the yard is on hills, it takes some work, like alternating between pushing a 200# non propelled lawnmower and trying to hold back a tiller on hard soil.

Here is an advertisement for one: http://www.mowersatjacks.com/Product-Details/HUSQVARNA/966067801

By tractor I was referring to a ride on lawn mower. I saw the dragging of the mat in a youtube video. I don't recall exactly the topic of the video, I think it was how to aerate a lawn where they also suggested overseeding and finally showed the dragging of the mat. Lawns are cut short, top dressed, walked on, snowed on, so I don't think the mat is going to really damage it.

LOL, Pete I was imagining one of those farm tractors and assumed that the drag mat would be of obvious scale / size, to match the tractor, Please forgive my very over active imagination LOL
I know there are all different methods of treating a lawn, but it all depends on the species of grass used for the lawn, here we grow the finer types of lawn grass and we also have domestic lawn grass that would be used for play areas where you might have kids play equipment or ball games, we are always so surprised when we visit USA just how harsh under foot the grasses are but because of the many climates and temps you experience it is fully understandable as I doubt if our finer grass would survive in say Florida or California but that's what makes the world go around I guess, diversity.

Happy gardening, hope the new seed takes OK.
Best regards. WeeNel.

I am very curious about grass types since I first did some research about 20 years ago the first time I overseeded a lawn. I chose a tri blend of Kentucky Bluegrass (KB) here in the North East - that was in Massachusetts. I recently read that there are improved KB types with very deep roots and I am trying a tri blend of that now. I am using the Tri-hybrid Blue blend here listed about 1/4 of the way down the page:
http://www.northeastnursery.com/lawn/specialty.html

It is interesting that Scotts has dropped this type from their consumer line and they seem to be pushing, I think it is, impoved tall fescues rather than KB these days.

What types do you grow?

Maintaining a beautiful lawn is one of the most challenging aspect of home ownership. I know it took years with trial and error and several seminars.
A lot of considerations most especially zones since there are different types of grass available in the market.
I know DH went to Lowes and listened to their seminars on lawns and did help help. I was also involved with neighborhood garden clubs and one of our speakers was from the agricultural extension and i remember telling us the best grass in our zone.
If you have lowes in your area I would go to them. Also the crabgrass will take over and kill the new grass if they are not controlled. Even now with a very thick zoysia DH still apply crabgrass control in early spring because our neighbors has crabgrass and he does not like weeds.

Good luck to you!!!

Belle

I want to do this in the next week or so even though I think it is rather late in the season, still better than doing it in the Spring. Should we top dress first, then put the seed down, or put the seed down then top dress? Suggestions?

It is not too late, now is the time to reseed.

Belle

Any suggestions for the order of putting down the seed?

1) Fix irrigation, header, other.
2) Remove weeds.
3) Prep soil
4) Fertilizer and seed (either order)
5) Top dress. This is to hide the seeds from the birds, so needs to be on top. Not very deep, though. The baby grass needs to be able to grow through it. 1/8" is just about right.
6) Water.
7) Water.
8) Water.

Thank you, is .25" too much if I was looking to improve the soil also?

.25" is about the most that seed can grow through.

What you can do it something like this:
Every couple of years (depends on species of grass)
1) Kill weeds (hand pull, or, if you use herbicides do not time it too close to when you reseed)
2) Dethatch and Aerate.
3) Add seed, fertilizer, soil conditioner. (.25" max)

Then, several times per year, add more soil conditioner. .25" max each time, but lets say you could do it 4 times per year, that is like adding 1" of compost to your soil. Granted, it is breaking down through the warm season, but in breaking down that is adding humus and some nutrients to the soil, and the soil is getting some of the other benefits of adding organic matter.

If the lawn is in worse shape, then it might be better to start over. I would draw the line at about 75% good grass + 25% weeds or bare spots is a salvageable lawn. More bad spots suggests more than renovation, approaching the 'start over' idea. Then you could add a lot more organic matter and rototill it in with the existing soil.

If the bad areas are concentrated in a couple of large patches, then you could redo just those patches:
Find out why those areas are bad. Fix sprinklers, for example.
Kill weeds
Rototill soil conditioner and fertilizer
level the area
seed or sod
...and do the dethatch-aerate type of renovation on the better areas.

I think it is in good enough shape to just fix the problem areas. Most of the lawn has 6 - 7" of what looks like decent top soil but it has not been aerated with a plug aerator, well ever, as far as I know. My plan is to cut it very low in the problem areas and aerate the entire lawn. Slit seed and top dress with a mix of half top soil/compost to about 1/8" perhaps .25" where it needs it. I'm thinking of getting 4 yards of the Garden Mix here:
http://grilloservices.com/topsoil-and-compost-ct/#screened

The soil near the street seems to have become very sandy, not sure if they ran out of top soil or if the heat from the black top has "boiled" off the organic matter, if that is even possible.

This message was edited Oct 27, 2013 9:46 AM

Lawn is looking better but I noticed a huge amount of annual rye grass this year which is more of a weed grass as I understand it. It seems to be growing strong almost everywhere this year. I was told that it germinates in the fall and that I should put down pre emergent crabgrass killer to stop it for the next season.

Thanks for all the tips, it is really looking a lot better.