Bought this gorgeous house last year, and have always wanted a pollinator/local plant lawn. Right now, I have patchy grass that yellows in the worst parts of the summer. The lawn currently has patches/holes. I'd like to take the easy route, and overseed with some local varieties of ground cover (Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana), Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense)). Do I need to do any thing to prep the soil?
by Mermaid_Natalia
1 Comment
The established grass is going to out compete any seed you lay down. If you keep doing it over and over again, the plants will likely establish in the areas the grass struggles but it will take awhile.
To start, the tree ring around the tree needs to go and you need to make sure that the trees root flare is exposed. Tree rings are placed by landscapers who don’t want to weed wack the tree but no nothing of tree health. A root flare is where the tree exchanges oxygen so when it’s buried the tree gets stressed and sends out adventurous roots that can often become girdling roots that kill the tree.
For the yard, it doesn’t look like you have the space to do the cardboard and mulch method to suffocate the grass without it spilling into the road, so you’ve got these viable options:
1) solarize the yard this summer – clear tarp over the yard. It’ll bake everything during the summer months and kill most weed seeds in the soil. Wet the lawn before you do this to speed it up. Wait until first frost and pull the tarp up and spread the seed. You need to keep the tarp on until frost or weeds will grow once they don’t have to compete against the grass.
2) use a grass herbicide and kill the grass and then apply the seed. The issue here is that most wildflower seed needs cold stratification. Ie the seed needs to get cold and wet like it does in nature for a certain length of time before it germinates. You’ve missed the timing on that. If you herbicide now and put the seed down, all summer long you’ll actually be inviting weeds into the yard that can now thrive in the face of no competition.
3) herbicide and plant a bunch of native plugs – this is the fastest option if you want to take advantage of a growing season this year. Kill the grass and then plant one native plug per square foot. Apply mulch in between the plugs. You’ll still have weeding to do but as the plants get established you’ll have less and less. I recommend getting a plant identification app like PictureThis so you can tell what’s a friend and what’s a foe