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How to Prepare and Overseed Your Lawn

Rain. Rain. More rain.

We’ve had a streak of rainy days around here. It felt more like summer in May and early June then it does right now.

But I’m not complaining because this is fabulous lawn growing weather.

And right now our top project is improving our front lawn.

So we’ve welcomed the rain. And are excitedly awaiting the return of the sunshine so that these little babies can take root and shoot up into the world.

We prepped the lawn. We sprayed the weeds. We thatched. Aerated. Overseeded. Fertilized. Watered.

And now. We wait.

I can’t wait to see the lush and healthy green lawn that we’ve been working towards.

Dreaming of a lush healthy lawn how to prepare and oversee

To start this project we sprayed the weeds in our lawn with Scotts EcoSense Weed B Gon.

This stuff is amazing. Not only does it tackle dandelions (our biggest lawn weed issue) along with other broadleaf weeds; but it doesn’t harm your grass so it doesn’t matter if you spray it all over.

And it’s rain proof in three hours – which is pretty important around here. The handy-dandy battery operated sprayer is pretty cool too – it saves your hand when you are spraying a big area.

Weed B Gone

A few days later, we cut the lawn to a very short height. We then rented two machines from our local tool rental center: a power rake {aka a de-thatcher} and an aerator.

The power rake is designed to get rid of the moss in your existing lawn. We had so much moss in areas that the grass felt spongy. It was definitely a needed step or our new grass seed would never have been able to make contact with the soil (and therefore not grow).

You would not believe how much moss there was! We removed Two. Truckloads. And it’s not a small truck box.

Wow. Who knew?! I should have saved some of it for crafting with…

The aerator just pops out little plugs of soil from your lawn in order to reduce the level of soil compaction.

We raked the lawn and soil after it had been power raked and aerated in order to prepare the surface for top soiling and overseeding.

Overseeding our lawn with Scotts at the happy housie-7

Once the lawn was prepared it looked pretty bare and patchy…

Like, way worse then it was to start with actually.

But you know what they say. Things always look worse before they look better.

Overseeding our lawn with Scotts at the happy housie-2

The next stop was to top dress and add a little fresh soil for our lawn seed to grow in. Scott’s make a great product called Turf Builder Enriched Lawn Soil that is fortified with nutrients for your new lawn so that it will grow in faster and more thickly. We spread the top soil around, raking it in and making an inviting surface for our seed to take root in.

Recieved from Pigeon June 22, 2010

Once the soil was ready, the seeding part was quick and easy. We followed the instructions on the back of our seed for the appropriate spread rate to use on our spreader in order to overseed. We started by going over the whole lawn with the Scotts Turf Builder Sun & Shade mix, and then went over the dryer areas with the Scotts Turf Builder Heat & Drought mix.

Overseeding our lawn with Scotts at the happy housie-3

If you look really, really closely you can see the seed spread out over the soil. We then raked it in lightly so that it mixed with the soil (not smothering it, but making sure that the seed had good contact with the soil).

Overseeding our lawn with Scotts at the happy housie-6

To give it an extra boost, we fertilized it immediately using Turf Builder Starter.  This product is designed for use on brand new lawns and on overseeded lawns. Turf Builder Starter is different from the other fertilizers as it is designed to help develop a strong root system in your lawn {which is exactly what you want if you are aiming for a lush, thick, and healthy established lawn}.

turf builder starter

Overseeding our lawn with Scotts at the happy housie-8

All ready to go…

Overseeding our lawn with Scotts at the happy housie-9

Now the most important ingredient to ensure that all the fruits of your labour come to fruition is  water. We are watering our lawn twice a day, moving the sprinkler around to ensure that all the seed stays damp. The thing is, we can’t let the seeds dry out or that’ll be it. No beautiful lush, green, lawn.

Overseeding our lawn with Scotts at the happy housie-10

So needless to say, I can’t wait to show you how it looks in about a month or so.

I’m super excited to see how much we were able to improve our lawn with all this work.

Stay tuned!

Products Used for this Project:

In the meantime, if you think you might want to give your lawn some new life through overseeding, then save it to remember it!

This is awesome! Pin it to remember it!

Dreaming of a healthy lawn how to prepare and overseed at the happy housie

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Disclosure: I’m super excited to be partnering with Scotts on this lawn makeover project. All opinions are 100% my own.

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission. Cheers!

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One Comment

  1. I saw your post with the grass grown in. Amazing results! I am just curious if you raked the seed into the soil at all? I know it is recommended to lightly rake the seed into the soil, but people say they get good results from just keeping it on the surface.

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