Hey all, I live in SE Michigan, 1.5 acres of mowable lawn. Bought my first house late fall. There is a lot of different weeds and bare patches, to the point where I’d be covered in dust and dirt after mowing. There is also damage from digging critters. I didn’t see a lot of thatch. The ground is pretty uneven and lumpy. I unfortunately did not get a soil sample before ground froze. I’m just wondering what the best steps to follow for the spring are. I’m not sure if should weed n feed before trying to overseed? When do I try and attack grubs? Can I lawn roll before seeding? Probably not in the budget to get and spread top soil in the spring so will need to potentially do that at later date. Open to advice and “best” order to do things come spring.
by Character-Survey9310
5 Comments
Late summer/early fall is the best time to seed cool season lawns.
Regardless, if you are you looking for information about how to overseed a cool season lawn. You can find a comprehensive guide [in this post here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/lawncare/s/pUsKCxyvwQ)
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Dethatching is a recent trend in lawn care that’s become more common thanks to youtube creators and other non-academic sources. As such, there’s a widespread misunderstanding/misinformation about the topic. This automatic comment has been created in the hopes of correcting some of those falsehoods.
Thatch is the layer of stems and roots, both living and dead, that makes up the top layer of soil. Grass clippings are not thatch and do not contribute to thatch. The thickness of thatch can only be assessed by digging into the soil.
Some thatch is good. While some academic sources say that under 1 inch of thatch is beneficial, most settle for half an inch. Thatch is beneficial for many reasons (weed prevention, traffic tolerance, insulation against high temps and moisture loss, etc) and should not be removed. Over half an inch of thatch may not warrant removal, but the underlying causes should be addressed. An inch or more of thatch SHOULD be addressed. Dethatching as a regular maintenance task, and not to address an actual thatch problem, is NOT beneficial… Again, some thatch is good.
Thatch problems are not typical. Excessive thatch is a symptom of other issues, such as: over-fertilization, overwatering, regular use of fungicides, excessive use of certain insecticides, high/low pH, and the presence of certain grasses (particularly weedy grasses).
Dethatching with a flexible tine dethatcher (like a sunjoe) causes considerable short-term and long-term injury to lawns, and is known to encourage the spread of some grassy weeds like bentgrass and poa trivialis. In some RARE cases, that level of destruction may be warranted… But it should always be accompanied with seeding.
A far less damaging alternative to dealing with excessive thatch is core aeration. Core aeration doesn’t remove a significant amount of thatch, and therefore doesn’t remove a significant amount of healthy grass. BUT it can greatly speed up the natural decomposition of thatch.
Verticutters and scarifiers are also less damaging than flexible tine dethatchers.
For the purposes of overseeding, some less destructive alternatives would be slit seeding, scarifying, manual raking, or a tool like a Garden Weasel. Be sure to check out the seeding guide [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/lawncare/s/pUsKCxyvwQ)
Additionally, be sure to check the list of causes above to be sure you aren’t guilty of those.
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Got a Menards near you? Just follow their program, they sell fertilizer that’s labeled step 1-4. Normally you can get it with or without weed control.
Seed either at least 4 weeks before any weed control or pre emergent or at least 4 weeks after.
Never detatch.
Mulch leaves, don’t collect.
more dogs
– Fertilize it every 6 weeks while it’s actively growing (soil temps over 45F) Use a fertilizer that’s roughly 5:0:1 (so, 25-0-5 for example, doesn’t need to be exact). Skip summer applications or go very very light.
– spray the weeds. Backpack or hand pump sprayer with a flat tip nozzle. You can spot spray every 2-3 weeks, or blanket spray the whole lawn every 4 weeks. When your soil temps are above 60F, you can use any selective broadleaf weed killer (3 of the following active ingredients: 2,4-d, dicamba, mcpa, mcpp (mecoprop), triclopyr, quinclorac), for example Ortho Weed b gon. When your soil temps are between 40F and 60F, use those same active ingredients, but use esters… Herbicides can be salts or esters, the active ingredient names will say one or the other. Crossbow is an example that has esters (only 2 active ingredients, which is fine).
– get the mow height back up. 3 inches minimum, 3.5-4 ideally. Actually measure it, don’t trust numbers on the mower.
– when soil temps start trending upward in the spring, and hit 50F, apply crabgrass preventer of some sort asap. There’s tons of options, but active ingredient prodiamine would be the best.
– when soil temps hit 60F, water once a week. Water to the point that the soil becomes NEARLY fully saturated.
– when soil temps hit 70F, water twice a week. Same saturation thing.
– when they hit 80F, you might have to go up to 3 or even 4 days a week, but fight as long as you can.
– WHEN crabgrass shows up in June. Spray that with something that contains quinclorac (weed b gon with crabgrass killer for example). Sedgehammer if nutsedge shows up.
– keep constantly fighting weeds through the summer. The sooner you spray a weed, the less of a problem it (and its potential offspring) will be in the future. If a weed doesn’t die within 2 weeks of spraying, hit it again.
– towards the end of summer, evaluate if you think the lawn needs any seeding… I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. [either way, here’s my seeding guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/lawncare/s/4Cf44ZslT6)