New lawn nightmare

c-town – posted 10 July 2004 07:33

I’m beginning to think that when it comes to grass, we’re just cursed, plain and simple. Sorry in advance for the length of this, but I’m getting desperate here.

New construction (not so new anymore) and we’ve now been through 2 landscapers trying to install our lawn. The 2nd attempt was 5 weeks ago today – they seeded and threw down Penn Mulch, and in my uneducated opinion, not nearly enough. 3 days later, we had a heavy storm (about 2 inches of rain within a couple hours) that appeared to wash out much of the topsoil, seed and mulch onto our sidewalk. Landscaper says just wait and see what happens.

So we’ve followed instructions to a T – keep it moist for 4-5 weeks, which has been near impossible with so much bare dirt (i.e. no Penn). But I’ve watered 3 times a day whenever it hasn’t been raining. The result: we have perhaps 35-45% coverage after 5 weeks, and about 95% of what actually did pop up is large crabgrass (or so I think – red stalks, broad leaves, nasty looking stuff).

Landscaper is supposed to be coming in a few days to overseed, but I’m wondering if the new seed will stand a chance with established crabgrass that is rapidly spreading? I’m dreading having to spend the time and money on another month watering, which has prevented us from even making dinner plans, much less a vacation. (I know, sprinkler system – but we just don’t have the cash to swing it yet.)

And good advice for man in need? I guess I’m just looking for input from some experts so I don’t have to keep relying on reassurances from my landscaper, because I don’t know enough to question what he tells me. Many thanks for any feedback.

tommy – posted 10 July 2004 15:15

One way to reduce your watering burden-is to hook a timer to your hose bib! Just run regular garden hose on the edges of your yard – hooking up two or three (for the average size yard) impact sprinklers along the way…..set the timer for 3 times a day, and part of your “headache” is taken care of! As far as the lawn goes- The desirable grass you have from the original planting- may be mature enough to handle an application of crabgrass killer. Normally this chemical is too harsh for tender seedlings, but it sounds like your grass may be far enough along to handle it. Spray in the cool of the evening, and wait 3 or 4 days before re-seeding.

cohiba – posted 10 July 2004 20:11

c-town,

Where are you located?

If in the cool season grasses: let the weeds germinate and live with them until later in August. Save the water until you can complete an overseed operation in the fall. Round-up the whole thing two times in August and start over in the fall. Take soil tests to see if your lawn will be successful.

Good Luck and take care……………

c-town – posted 11 July 2004 12:12

Thanks guys.

Trust me, we considered the timer but never even got that far, because our water pressure is too low to even handle 2 serial sprinklers without reducing the stream to it being pointless using more than one sprinkler.

As for “desirable” grass, there’s literally hardly any. Almost the entire coverage area, which is still extremely sparse mind you, is crabgrass.

cohiba, I’m in Cleveland. Your answer is kind of what I was hoping to hear. I guess the problem is, my landscaper is running the show, so to speak. Should I tell him that he should change his plans? Should any landscaper worth his salt know better than to try doing this in mid-July?

One of my major concerns is that he has no intention of covering the overseed work with straw or Penn mulch, and it’s just impossible to keep everything moist with bare ground. I really can’t stand the thought of watering for another month and coming up with nothing, or all weeds. I know enough to expect some weed problems at first, but this seems ridiculous.

Also, say we actually get good coverage now, even with mostly crabgrass. Is that something we should be able to deal with and get the crabgrass out eventually with chemicals, or does this really sound like we should start over again for the third time?

Thanks again.

ted – posted 11 July 2004 21:28

yeah, just wait until the fall- too hot in my opinion (even in cleveland) to seed now. roundup in the fall to kill off any perennial weeds (crabgrass not one of them) then seed /sod correctly. fertilize and water in the fall, then apply proper pre-em for crabgrass,etc. in the spring of next year. didn’t i post a response to a similiar question from you eariler in the spring?

c-town – posted 12 July 2004 05:56

Hi Ted,

Yes, it’s me again, and thanks again for your response. I simply cannot believe that we’re having similar problems with a 2nd landscaper. At least this one appears to be willing to fix the mistake and I doubt will be skipping town (his company has been around for 14 years) but I just don’t think his approach seems right. I’ll do my best to talk him out of trying to overseed now. We have no problems waiting longer (heck, it’s been almost a year now), as long as we wind up with a normal yard full of grass. We just want the job done right. Thanks again.

ted – posted 16 July 2004 17:39

in your market, you’re probably not looking at over a month until seeding with you being so far north. you’ll get it right this time.

ted – posted 16 July 2004 17:43

yeah, upon rereading your post- you should have had about 50% mulch and 50% ground. every problem you describe is exactly why we don’t seed in the spring! when your landscaper comes up with the fall plan- post back and let us know the details and we’ll try to respond before another mistake occurs.

c-town – posted 31 July 2004 08:45

Well, the landscaper really wanted to take care of things right away, so I told him as long as the guarantee was still good, and they’d be willing to come back if lightning struck a third time, to do what they wanted. They used a Harley rake to re-grade and loosen up the earth and threw down “enough seed to do the entire street” with clean straw rather than Penn Mulch this time.

It’s been about 10 days now and fortunately, the weather has been almost perfect with a decent mix of rain (which has been saving us on the time and expense of watering) and not with temps mostly in the 70s, some low 80s. Even with some strong storms, the soil hasn’t been washing out onto the sidewalk at all.

We’re starting to see some germination, but it’s hard to tell if it’s the nasty stuff growing or new grass. The landscaper claimed that what we had before wasn’t crab grass, but was annual rye. Is this possible? When it got tall, the red crown/stalk was extremely thick. Will the new grass crowd this stuff out? Should I pull up any of that stuff that remains?

My only other question is that we were told the new mix was 25% all around – rye, bluegrass, red fescue, and poa annua. I’m ok with the rest, but everything we’re reading about poa annua talks about eliminating it. Why would they use this for one quarter of our lawn if it’s undesirable?

Thanks for all the feedback everyone.

ted – posted 01 August 2004 13:39

those who do not listen are forever doomed…

i think was too early to reseed, even in your “cooler weather” market, but i’ll pass judgment on that since i don’t know that much about Cleveland weather.if it’s crabgrass, it’s an annual weed, and you can deal with it in the spring with a pre-emergent-don’t pull it!. it sounds like ryegrass with the red stems, etc. i also have alot of trouble with the “enough seed to seed the entire street” comment. you have to put down the correct amount of seed, or you can wind up with more trouble than you started with ( fungus, shallow roots, etc.) this landscaper guy need alot of work, he’s the kind of guy that makes for problems in the industry. lets just hope it works!!!