![]() ![]() On Buzzard's Roost, we have an area of lawn for recreation time, it has been over seeded four times and is more like a carpet under bare feet. ![]() (This is also the method used by the best sod farms for the grass they sell). When I worked at a Nursery putting in new lawns we would seed and when the plants were up two weeks we would mow and seed again, once those plants were up for two weeks we came back, mowed and seeded again, this builds a thick lawn that has so many grass plants that weeds have a very hard time getting established. ![]() Over seeding is the best method for choking out weeds. Grass shoots lengthen the stalk (part that the green blades come from), so if you cut so short that only these stalks are left, the grass plants can die off, then the grass becomes thinner in density allowing weed seed the light they need to sprout. When the grass has grown above 5" in height, don't cut more than two inches off, better to cut twice a week to get it back down to proper height. Grass plants do best when cut to a height of between 1.5 and 3 inches in length, shorter when colder, longer when the heat is on is a good rule of thumb for mowing. Lawns should be watered for at least one hour, once a week (twice a week in really hot weather) less just makes the roots grow so shallow that the lawn will not survive really hot weather without daily watering. (dew normally doesn't make it down into the soil and is gone just a few hours after the sun comes up in most cases). If you must use sprinklers, then early morning (just before sunrise) is the preferred time, this gets most of the water into the soil and does not create situations where the grass plants are wet long enough to have molds form. Sprinkling has been shown to put about 1.4 of the water applied into the atmosphere, without ever getting down into the soil, leaky hose, buried 2" under the surface of the soil allows easy watering with no evaporation. Mulch can be spread over grass and watered in, this replenishes the soil with the nutrients the grass plants need while not creating the thatch scenario (win - win situation). If you bag your clippings and add them to your compost heap, they will induce heating of the compost pile, always a good thing. If you put down your clippings as mulch, it will build over time and while it can help retain water in the soil it can also create a suffocating item called thatch which will kill the grass plants. There are lots of thoughts on grass clipping as mulch expressed in this thread and I've seen people do most of them. ![]()
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