Are You Sure You Want To Plant Grass Seed This Spring?

Spring is the time for lawn renewal, gardens and landscape beds. It is the time of year for visits to your local nursery or gardening store to gather new annual and perennial flowers, vegetables, shrubs and maybe even a tree or two. You also might just want to add some color back into your outdoor space after the boring and washed out colors of winter.

It's only natural that many people want to revitalize their lawn by adding new seed to help increase the density of their turf. Cool season grasses take a beating during the winter, often looking worse when they first start greening up than they do after a particular hot and dry summer. Those first few warm days that seem to cause buds to swell and the first signs of green to poke through make us anxious for the warmth of spring and summer. We want our lawns to look great again, but sometimes that just doesn’t happen – yet.

When Do I Plant Grass Seed in the Spring?

Cool-season grasses, bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, fine fescue and tall fescue, take time to begin growing in the spring. Soil temperatures have to reach the 45 to 55-degree mark before growth starts to pick-up. It is also the minimum temperature for cool season grass seed to germinate. The soils take a good deal longer to warm than air temperature. In some cases, these soil temperatures may be delayed until late April or even mid-May. If seed is applied now, it could become water-logged and rot before it ever has a chance to germinate.

In order to have success planting grass in the spring, you have to be able to answer “yes” to all of these questions.

9 Questions to Ask Before Planting Grass in the Spring:

1. Have both annual grasses and broadleaf weeds been controlled in the past and are not a current problem in your lawn?
2. Have common insect and disease activity been reduced during the past year?
3. Has the lawn been core aerated or other soil preparation activities taken place?
4. Does the lawn have a sprinkler system that has been activated for the current year?
5. If not, do you have sprinklers that can be turned on for two to three weeks, or even longer and may need to be turned on two or three times a day to ensure the seedlings will survive?
6. Do you understand that the lawn will need more water throughout the summer?
7. Do you understand that you cannot apply a crabgrass preventer to the area for this year?
8. Do you understand that you cannot apply any broadleaf weed control to the area until after the seed has germinated and been mowed at least three times?
9. Are you set to fertilize the new seed to help it grow and prosper?

If you can answer yes to all of these questions, than you can go ahead and seed this spring. If not, it's better to wait until fall to seed your lawn.

Be sure to contact your local neighborhood lawn care team at Spring-Green for all your lawn care needs.