Ignorant Michigan Housewife seeks Assistance w/ new lawn

Rebecca – posted 18 May 2005 09:53

Hello everyone! I found this forum while doing some research, trying to decide whether or not to purchase some Canadagreen grass seed. After reading that thread, I decided NOT to try it. But I do need some help and advice, and am hoping you all could give me some suggestions, since so many of you seem to be really well-informed on lawns. Here is my situation:

We live in the Northern Detroit Suburbs and our yard is a standard 40ft wide city lot, lots of sun in the front and a good amount of sun on the sides and back, I’d call that partly shaded but there are several hours of good sunlight through a given day.

My husband and I just built a new home and the builder sodded the front and seeded the back. The sod in the front has been down for about 3 weeks now and yellowed a little around the edges but now has greened up and filled in and is really looking great, we are getting ready to mow for the first time this weekend. I have no worries about the front. Before you ask me what kind of sod, I have no idea, I didn’t even realize there were so many different varities till I read a while on this forum!

The sides and the back are where I am worried. They came and did the final grade and put down a new layer of topsoil, then seeded and put down a very thick layer of straw. The builder told us to leave the straw down until the lawn sprouted and to mow right over it and let it mulch down, that it will be good food for the grass. I don’t know what kind of seed they used, which I know isn’t really all that helpful.

It’s been about 3 weeks and there are a few tiny blades of grass popping up underneath the straw, but they are very thin and sparse and in some areas it isn’t sprouting at all. I am worried that there might be so much straw that it is choking the new grass? Should I rake some of that up at this point? There definately isn’t enough grass to mow, I am talking really little baby blades here. My husband thinks we should rake it up and overseed and put the straw back down, but I think that raking it up will wreck the tiny grass that is there now. We would really love to have at least the start of a good lawn by the end of the summer and I just am not sure which steps to take next. It seems like you go to the garden centers and the nurseries and each ‘expert’ tells you something different, usually trying to sell you as much of their products as possible! That’s why I was looking at the Canadagreen, I saw an ad on it and thought it might be a fast solution, but after reading that it is largely annual seed it makes no sense to me to use that.

Recommendations?Thanks in advance for all your help.

Rebecca

ted – posted 18 May 2005 14:20

i’m guessing bluegrass in your market or perhaps rye- you need a 50% covering of straw- it could have been too much straw. did you fert it? how about soil testing? what’s your temps??

Carolyn – posted 04 August 2005 12:24

Howdy! Sounds as if you have the same problems as we do! Here’s the best advice I can give, and it came from a farmer that grew his lawn in 2 weeks. Hire someone that has a “picker” that can lightly prick the soil (the topsoil thing is great – most builders don’t do that. Ours didn’t!), then have him spread the seed. Fertilize the dickens out of it after that and you should be fine. Scott’s lawncare service offers a sod-splitter method which is fantastic too. However, I definitely recommend hiring someone to do it right, and that doesn’t include hydroseed!