So...

With Spring finally sprung in Southern Ontario, my wife has decided that I need to ensure the well being of our lawn.

I've googled some sites to see what people have done, and most are in the US. I'm thinking it's a bit different up here given the volatility of the weather.

What do you guys do to prep the lawn and then seed the lawn. What am I looking at for equipment? Pair of gloves and a bag of seed?

Any experienced hands out there with some green tips?

Might want to aerate your lawn before you go forward with the seeding and the watering.

Yea forsure aerate then get a seed spreader (borrow the neighbour's) with a good quality seed. You get what you pay for

I think Kyle nailed it.

I don't really do much lawn care myself, but my dad was always picky about our lawns as I was growing up. They were always full, green, and healthy.

The thing he said more often than anything else: "Never cheap out on the seeds!"

I ended up re-sodding the whole lawn last year. Considering the condition my back yard was in, fresh Kentucky blue grass sod was quicker, cheaper and looks great!

Primo Grass eh Rez

If it is an old lawn filled wth weeds. It is better to start with a Rottotiller and a dump trailler. Start new. And yes always use good seed.

Nothing but

I have nothing to add here other than holy shoot this forum is filled with a lot of good know-how

Some of the best place to buy seeds is at a Coop or where ever the farmers gets theirs. Stay away from CrappyTire seeds.

This time of the year is the best time to seed. Wait a few weeks after you spred the new seeds and then use a good quality slow release spring fertilizer. Follow that by some summer stuff and then fall fertilizer at the end of the season.

Aeration is excellent.

The best you can do is ensure that your grass is strong; that way it will be harder for the weeds to compete. Water as much as you can $$$ to ensure it does not burn. Now the last thing to remember is that it will burn at sometime; that is when you'll lose the battle. Strong grass will do better and will come back when the rain season comes back.

Look for grubs; these things will eat the grass roots and will leave patch of dead grass. They are very easy to kill with "Parasetic Nematode". You can buy that stuff at any garden center, not cheap but again it works very well. For pesky weeds you can use goo old vinegar. That stuff will kill everything. Other bugs can be displaced by putting good old cayen peper. They do not like it and will migrate to your neigbour's lawn...

Hope this helps.

Ghislain

Rake your lawn first thing, get all the dead grass out before anything else. Yes rake your Intire lawn hard and strong. Tetitous work but when doing this, it gives the lawn a chance to grow fresh and focus on healthy growth rather then manage growth and damage control with all the dead grass from the snow and previous year growth. Then go to your local pit and get Top Dress and seed, usally $60 for a yard. Spread evenly through out your lawn, if needed grab another yard to complete. After water your lawn 2 hours a night. Make sure to do this while there is cool nights cause grass grows best when it's cool. So wait until the first week of may go start maybe just maybe end of April, but be safe first week of may. Cause if you start to soon, your work will be spoiled and a waste of time. After a month has past coming into June, research on what type of fertilize application best fits you. This veries because of cost and timetableing. More applications means more money. If you do these easy but demanding steps, promise you this you will see a night and day deference in the health of the lawn. Also with weeds, I still haven't seen a better method then hand picking. With all the today's fancy new chemicals and what not, only has made us lazy and poorer. Take the time and do it right the first time with hand picking and you won't need to keep dumping money into weed control.

Three tips to remember when doing this:

1: When spreading the Top Dress and seed have an even 1/2 inch through out the Intire lawn.

2: When hand picking weeds make sure you pull not just the top of the weed but the Intire plant, root and all. If not all you will be doing is wasting your time.

3: Do the Top Dress and seed in the middle of spring cause if to late the temperature will be to high to get maximum growth from the seed. So if to early the seed will die and if to late the seed will damage and won't get best growth. There is that 3-4 week window past that you have to wait until fall.


Good luck
Cheers!!!!!

One last thing lol, don't cut your lawn until the Top Dress and seed has rooted. So like first week of June. Worst thing you can do is after all that hard work is run machine over it and stirr up all the dress and seed that is trying to root.

Great information everyone, especially Ghiz. Wow. You are a wiz. I look forward to tackling the front and backyard soon. My first lawn. Needs much TLC.

Lol Rob - primo grass

Put a spread of sheep manure and seed blended together once you have aerated. The more problematic the area the more seed you should put in and water it.
You can overwhelm most problem areas using this technique. It's cheap and it works. Get good seed as well Scott's is great

One of my favorite Top Dress is good old mushroom compost. We have a farm here that sells the stuff for $10 a ton.

Ghislain

This is all great information! Thank you all.

I have a small lawn both front and backyards.

What kind of manual Core Lawn Aerator have any of you used in the past?

I was looking at this one here:
http://www.amazon.com/Hound-Dog-HDP...=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Seems cheap, but hard work.
Suggestions?

Steve that looks like a bitch.

Saw these when I was looking at that:
http://www.amazon.com/Bond-9215-Green-Spiked-Aerator/dp/B000BX1GMC/ref=pd_sim_sbs_lg_3

When I was young my baby sitter let me aerate her grass, the were on tight enough and while I was walking on flipped and a spike went through my foot.

I would just see if you can rent one or get a kid in to do it. I worked for a company where they would drop us off with an aerator and then we went house to house haggling to see how much we could make, the break even is 40ish. If you offer them a little more than that they will more than likely do it. I am not sure what it would cost to rent one.

Why not just till the yard?

^^^
It's not a garden, lol.

I think if he had to till it, might as well just use a detacher and lay down some fresh sod.

1 skid of sod @ approx $200 is probably a cheaper option then all the manure, seeding, and top soil your going to add

I went through this last year already and re-sodded my back lawn. I did the seeding, top soil and all sorts of BS to the front lawn. At the end of the season, it still didn't look as pristine as the back yard. I realized what a waste of money, I should've just bought an extra half skid of sod for the front for about $100 to $150 and called it a day

What did you do in the first year of the sod to make sure it survived.
When I bought my house it was brand new so it was all fresh sod, it seems to burn really quickly and it really frustrating to maintain.

Very easy: just water it a lot. Every day for the first 3 weeks, till the roots develop. Then I just soak it 3 times a week.

Cool thank you sir! Now that the winter has passed I will just do the soaking every now and then.

LOL

It's so soggy out there that I can't aerate! Blast this weird weather.

But that sodding may grow well for you Bryan [in this weather]

I know. When we redo out lawn, we just use our gas powered tiller to mix everything. Good time to add some more top soil or a bit of manure too.

Haha, true Steve!

As long as you get good sod. I would rather just pave my front lawn then to waste water on weeds. I had a 40 year old lawn and let me tell you all the seed and sheep sh!t in theworld wouldnt keep the weeds out. Till the bitch and reseed with good seed or sod and start over.