Mowing an overseeded lawn

booadamboo · Sat May 11, 2013 11:15 am

I overseeded my lawn a couple of weeks ago and the new seedlings have germinated. The sprouts are over an inch long but not yet mature. My established grass around the sproutlings is becoming overgrown and looks ridiculous. If I mow the lawn slowly with my riding mower, will this suck up the new seedlings or should they be okay?

tomc · Sat May 11, 2013 1:26 pm

I'd set my mower high and mow it long till August or so. Let grass clippings go back on lawn. No raking or bagging.

*dim* · Sat May 11, 2013 1:42 pm

wait till the new seed has reached 5-6 inches high before mowing, then only remove the top 2 inches

after that, gradually mow shorter after time

harcoj · Mon May 13, 2013 11:22 am

*dim* wrote:wait till the new seed has reached 5-6 inches high before mowing, then only remove the top 2 inches

after that, gradually mow shorter after time

It sounds like he'd prefer to cut sooner because the grass around the seedlings is already very long. Probably if he waits until the new seed reaches 5-6 inches the rest of it will be a foot tall and laying down all over which is bad news too.

I had the same situation, I just mowed around it. Of course there is an overlap between the new seed and the old grass and this area got long, but it was kept to a narrow band around the seeded area. I set the mower to the highest setting and kept the bag on it. Maybe one or two of the new seedlings were stressed or pulled up, maybe not - but I basically cut around the seedlings until they hit about 3-4 inches.

EDIT > just saw it was from an overseeding, not a patch repair, sorry. I'd still say cut at 3-4 inches ... 1 inch is too small, waiting until 5-6 inches will have the grass laying down ...

mittengardener · Fri May 31, 2013 11:00 pm

booadamboo wrote:I overseeded my lawn a couple of weeks ago and the new seedlings have germinated. The sprouts are over an inch long but not yet mature. My established grass around the sproutlings is becoming overgrown and looks ridiculous. If I mow the lawn slowly with my riding mower, will this suck up the new seedlings or should they be okay?

Get some stakes and twine and section off the areas where there is more new grass than established. Mow everything else at the highest setting on your mower. Water the junk out of it because it won't grow unless the seeds are wet.