Grass Seed and Fertilizing

We have questions about grass, and I figured I’d bundle them up into one post.

The first one we got is “Do you know the special fertilizer we put down the six-month release? I did all of mine in mid-April. Now the question is, with all this rain we’ve had, does that take months away? In other words, am I still going to get a six month from that, or did the rain that we’ve had so much of take a lot of that out that I may have to maybe re-fertilize?”

There are some fertilizers that are highly affected by moisture. This is a coated fertilizer, so it’s much less affected by the moisture. Moisture, temperature, and time, those are the three things that cause this fertilizer release. It may have reduced it by a few weeks, but it didn’t significantly reduce its effectiveness. And at that time of year, the plants are getting ready to go to sleep anyway, so losing a couple of weeks isn’t a big deal.

There are other fertilizers that would normally last four to six weeks. With heavy rain, they would be gone in three. With fertilizer, you’re still good to go, it’s a one feed a season.

Here we go with another one: “I had two trees taken out, and I have grass growing in them. And, you know, planted grass and all that I would say almost three weeks ago. But on the edges, where it meets the original grass, let’s say, it is sort of like bare, and what can I do?

I bought your Dr. Earth, the Supernatural, some time ago, and I used some of that. It is a 301, you know. And I was just wondering if they have any tips on can I rake that, or would that be prohibitive or is it eventually going to come up? Because it has been a good little while.”

You should be seeing some germination by now. We have had pretty heavy rains, and sometimes that seed will wash off of bare ground. I think that happens. What I would recommend doing is just take a yard rake, rough that soil up so that there is some texture to that soil, and then I will just kind of rough it up with the tips of the yard rake. Put some fresh seed down, and then you can sprinkle Sweet Peat on top of it. That will lock that moisture in and kind of cover the seed, but it doesn’t cover the seed so deeply that it can’t germinate and grow. It also helps hold moisture so the seed will come up really good in that area.

Now would a liquid fertilizer for the rest of it be good to put on? You can use liquid or granular fertilizer to get the lawn to come up. We sell small bags of 12-12- 12. This time of year, you can use it no problem. When we get into the heat of summer, we do warn against using it, but right now, it is perfect. I used it on my yard where I had to repair some spots.

From my email also, “how long do I need to wait after Step 1 fertilizer, the pre-emergent, before I can put down grass seed?”

That is a great question. It depends on the type of active ingredient in the Step 1. Most of the time, I am going to recommend at least 6 to 8 weeks minimum before you reseed. Doing it sooner than that, you are kind of doing it on purpose because that chemical you put down to prevent seeds from germinating is also going to kill the grass seed as it germinates. At least 6 to 8 weeks. If we have a lot of rain like we have been having, it does dilute a little quicker, but I would still wait that 8-to-6-week time frame.

Questions? Email us at [email protected] or call one of our two locations: Portage (330-499-0101) or Everhard (330-492-1243).