Lawn resurface failure - why?
Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:43 pm
I moved into a new home last winter. The lawn was not taken care very well, so it was looking very bad.
I am a definite newby in this field, so I tried to study a little about lawn care on different websites.
It happened that my neighbor's garden was looking pretty bad, too. Since he wanted to put the house on sale he called a professional landscaper to redo his lawn. So I sat in my yard and carefully looked at what he did: they removed the bad grass, and used a power rake to move the soil. They spreaded the new seeds and the fertilizer and moved again the soil with rakes, to ensure contact between seeds and soil.
They then covered everything with straw and told them to water every day, once or twice.
Well, the following weekend I basically redid the same on my side. I used scott's fertilizer and seeds. I also watered daily.
My neighbor had his lawn redone on May 6 and on may 25 he was already mowing it. In 2 weeks the grass was 3 inches tall and very thick.
On my side it was a disaster, it's June 8 and only 5-10% of my grass grew. The few ones are still very tiny and weak.
I did exactly what I saw him doing, so what was the difference? Did I miss something or did he use some special kind of grass seed? Or fertilizer?
One final question: now it's almost mid June. Is it too late to retry seeding? Should I wait for the fall or should I try again? ( I live in Illinois )
Thanks
I am a definite newby in this field, so I tried to study a little about lawn care on different websites.
It happened that my neighbor's garden was looking pretty bad, too. Since he wanted to put the house on sale he called a professional landscaper to redo his lawn. So I sat in my yard and carefully looked at what he did: they removed the bad grass, and used a power rake to move the soil. They spreaded the new seeds and the fertilizer and moved again the soil with rakes, to ensure contact between seeds and soil.
They then covered everything with straw and told them to water every day, once or twice.
Well, the following weekend I basically redid the same on my side. I used scott's fertilizer and seeds. I also watered daily.
My neighbor had his lawn redone on May 6 and on may 25 he was already mowing it. In 2 weeks the grass was 3 inches tall and very thick.
On my side it was a disaster, it's June 8 and only 5-10% of my grass grew. The few ones are still very tiny and weak.
I did exactly what I saw him doing, so what was the difference? Did I miss something or did he use some special kind of grass seed? Or fertilizer?
One final question: now it's almost mid June. Is it too late to retry seeding? Should I wait for the fall or should I try again? ( I live in Illinois )
Thanks