SeattleDuder
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Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:58 pm

Reseeding lawn after scorched in Seattle summer.

Hello everyone,

I humbly ask for your input as I've been trying my best to revive my lawn after it was nuked in one of the driest summers in Seattle history. On a previous occasion I've had experience successfully being able to reseed the bare patches that had popped up ... but this time the weather was so dry that it went from making the grass dormant into brittle dead straw. :( I'm not 100% if this is the native grass on my lawn but in using the turfgrass identification tool on the sidebar it looks a lot like bermudagrass? I'm a total lawn novice so forgive my ignorance. I wanna learn!

Here's what I've done so far after watching YouTube videos and reading resources: Bought a dethatching machine from a guy on Craigslist for cheap and ran that over the lawn which is about 2200 sq ft. Raked up the pulled up thatch. Ran an iron rake to try and loose up the top soil. Used a distributor to distribute Scotts Lawn Food using the recommended dial settings along the property. Used a distributor to lay down Scotts Pacific Northwest Blend grass using the recommended dial settings. Coated the tops of the soil with Scotts lawn soil with about an 1/8 and raked it with an iron rake. I finished on 09/29/2017. Every day I've made sure to keep the ground moist by watering it. The seedlings are starting to germinate but there are some very exposed areas with little development. It's still early but ...

Here's the problem. There are still very large patches where there does not seem to be any growth at all. I examined these spots on the bare ground and when digging a bit with my fingers it felt like it was a bit compacted. In sifting the dirt in my hands, it felt like there were very tiny dead roots. Almost as if it was mossy? Like a cottony feeling. I wondered if this was posing as an obstacle for the seeds to be able to properly take root? Had I not tilled the topsoil enough, is that the problem?

Here's my question:

There were plenty of spots that weren't picked up when running the dethatching machine over the lawn. I assumed that these spots were just dormant since they seem so well rooted in the soil. I've been running water over these areas everyday and some of these seeds are starting to germinate, but these yellow straw islands which I assume are left over bermuda grass, do not seem to becoming active. Are they dead? If so, should I have in the beginning should have used a rototiller and just completely uprooted these guys completely?

My assumption that returning rains would get these yellow straw islands back and kicking has been pretty wrong so far. They seem pretty damn dead. Should I start from scratch by completely rotortilling the lawn? I only dethatched as I thought that would be enough. Any advice is sincerely appreciated. I've been trying to find decent resources/guides online and it just doesn't cut the mustard when having these specific scenario questions.

Here's a photo set of the lawn: https://imgur.com/a/WkOQw

imafan26
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Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

It sounds like a lot of the lawn is dead. You can renovate patches and reseed it, but when so much of the lawn is involved and especially if the lawn is over 7 years old or you have less than 50% of good turf, it may be time to do a renewal instead. Soil testing and amending the soil with compost and the right nutrients will help start your turf the right way. Renovation only works if the grass is in decent shape and renovation actually should be a regular thing, not just when the grass looks really bad. What the grass really needed was more water when it did not rain.

https://ipm.ucanr.edu/TOOLS/TURF/RENOVATE/complete.html
https://plantscience.psu.edu/research/ce ... renovation



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