| You may be able to find them locally at Lowe's or McClendons. I don't think that Home Depot carries that brand. Toro also makes a good one, and Rainbird makes them as well. Basically, you want one you can program to water 3-4 times a day, for a given number of minutes. I like the Gilmour because you can set the watering times exactly, along with the exact start times. Some you can only program to start 4, 8, 12 hours after you begin the program, and for 15 minute increments, which isnt' always what you need. Use a sprinkler that will cover, but not puddle. Again, Gilmour makes the ones we like best, as they are rotary type, model # ATR5, again available on Amazon, but also at McClendon's the last time I looked. They have the best coverage, and don't tend to leave puddles that can wash away seed like the type that swing back and forth. You'll want to experiment a bit to get the best coverage. Don't worry if you have to miss small areas, you can always go back and reseed those after the main area comes in. If you have a really large area, you can use two timers, and two sprinklers, on a splitter from the same hose bib. Just remember...don't turn OFF the hose bib! If you have decent water pressure, and fairly good coverage, you should be able to set your sprinkler timer to run for 7-10 minutes, say at 8 am, 11 am, 2 pm and 5 pm. You don't want the ground to be soaking wet, just keep it damp, so you may have to adjust as you go. You'll need to keep that program up for about 2 weeks. While you CAN do it without the timers, we've really found that they are the very best way to do it, and even though they aren't cheap ( $45-60) you will be able to use them later when you're on vacations, with soaker hose systems in beds, etc. etc. They are really worth the investment for this project! OK....now you have it! The secret to a gorgeous Seattle lawn! Follow these directions, and you will be able to get rid of your mossy, clump lawn, and have a nice smooth and healthy one for years to come. Thatch it every year or two, do a couple applications of iron and some granular lime ( which helps adjust the Ph of the soil to more suit grass ) and you won't have to go through the top dressing/overseeding part. Nice lawns are work, and using lots of fertilizers and chemicals on them are not always the answer, and are definitely not the best thing for our Sound! As always, please call us or come by to get your soils, compost, mulches and other garden needs! |
| Help! My Lawn Looks Terrible! (otherwise known as Seattle lawn!) |
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Every year about this time, we start getting calls from people who say their lawn looks terrible! Many times they ask if we can come aerate it, believing that to be the solution. While aerating your lawn is not a bad thing, it's usually not the solution to the biggest problem with Northwest lawns. That problem is called M-O-S-S !! While moss is a lovely green color, and some actually prefer it to grass, its' not a good thing if you prefer to have a lawn that IS grass! If you have a lawn that looks clumpy, with patches of unhealthy looking tufts of grass, surrounded by other patches of shorter, yellow green vegetation, you may very well have MOSS! As moss grows and fills in, it starts to prevent water from filtering through to the roots of the grass, starts to crowd out the grass itself, and eventually, just takes over the entire lawn. In the late summer, it may start to go dormant, and turn a yellowish brown, and then your lawn looks even worse! While it may LOOK hopeless, it's not, and need not even be that expensive to fix, if you're willing to do some work yourself. So here in a step by step list, is the way to restore your Northwest moss encrusted lawn! a) IRON! No, don't get out the iron and a long extension cord..not that kind of iron. What you need is granular iron, otherwise seen as Moss Out and other brands. You can also find Fertilizer's that are high iron, and those will work as well, but as much of Seattle is near our beautiful Puget Sound, and nitrates ( which as found in fertilizers ) are not GOOD for Puget Sound, we don't encourage you to use more nitrate fertilizer's than you really need to. So for this situation, we encourage you to start with Iron alone. The more iron the better when you're starting this process. Using a fertilizer spreader, hand carried spreader, or even just handfulls on the areas that have the worst moss, spread the granular iron on the moss areas. It is best to do it when it is dry out, and then to immediately sweep or blow it off sidewalks, drives, patios, etc., because it WILL cause stains if it gets wet and dissolves on those surfaces. Don't be afraid of using a good amount, it won't hurt anything to use a lot, and it will help kill the moss. We do recommend using a spreader, because there is most likely moss buried down in the healthier looking parts of your lawn, and you want to kill that too. Once you've applied your iron, and cleaned it off the walks, etc. you can either water it in using a sprayer on your hose, or wait 15 minutes until the next rainstorm passes through! It will need to get wet to start working the best. b) WAIT! For the iron to work, and the moss to die. This will take up to a few weeks. Sometimes you'll need to reapply iron again after 7-10 days. Basically, you want the moss to start to turn dark brown, which shows its' on it's last legs! The deader it is, the easier the next part is! c) THATCH! Thatching involves using either a power "lawn rake", or de-thatcher, or if you're doing a pretty small area and like a good workout, a hand thatch rake. A thatch rake has special thin pointed blades, that are mounted in a row about 18" wide usually. These grab the now dead moss as you pull back, and rip it out by the hopefully now dead "roots"! ( my horticultural business partner reminded me that moss doesn't have ROOTS...but you know what I mean! ) I'm not going to fool you and tell you it's easy. Its' a LOT of work if you're doing any size lawn at all. You can buy a thatch rake at your local hardware like McClendons' or Junction True Value, or you can rent one at Center Tool Rental in White Center @ (206) 762-5057. You can also rent a power thatcher there, and THAT is what I recommend if you are doing any size lawn area at all. A power thatcher has little mini rakes around a central shaft that spins, a bit like a reel mower does. Those little rakes spin fast, and they grab all that moss, and pull it up out of the ground with a lot less effort than it takes you to pull it out! You just have to push the thatcher, which are usually fairly light, and the little spinning tines do help to pull it along a bit. You'll want to make a couple passes and the best way is to make them first one direction, like north to south, and then for the second pass, go perpendicular as in west to east, so you end up with a lawn that looks like a checkerboard. What you'll also end up with is a LOT of moss. You will be really amazed at how much moss you end up with in fact! Bags, and bags, and bags of moss if you have never done this before and your lawn was in bad shape! d) RAKE! Yes, get the kids out from in front of the xbox, and put a leaf rake in their hands! Hey my Dad and Mom did it to me, and look! Here I am years later, telling you what to do! You might even be taking my advice! You will now have to rake up all that moss, and put it in your clean green bin, or lots and lots of clean green bins if you have lots of moss. Luckily it's a) light, b) fluffy and c) does compact down if you jump up and down on it. The easiest thing is to rake it into piles, then put the piles in the bags, cans, etc. (hey...I warned you...step by step! ) Once you've got all that moss raked up, you may look down at your lawn and say...but hey...I still see some moss! Guess what?! You get to do it again. You don't have to, your call there, but you do want to get as much of it up as you can for the best results e) TO AERATE or NOT TO AERATE? This is going to depend a bit on both how much work you feel like doing, and also on what the condition of the soil and lawn is that's left. (IF there's any left! ) If you're soil is pretty sandy, and is easy to stick a spading fork, or something along those lines into, or if you run some water on it, and it drains fairly fast, you probably don't have to worry too much about doing this step. If you're soil is very heavy clay, and water tends to sit on it when it rains, then you might want to aerate it. Again, you can rent them at rental shops, or you can pay a company to come out and do it. Aerating removes small 1/2" diameter or so plugs from the soil, every 4-6" and allows water to drain down into the soil, and into the roots of your grass. That helps it grow more healthy, with less water. I always like to rake up the plugs after aerating, but since you are next going to top dress it with new soil, it may not be needed. Warning, aerators are pretty awkward, heavy pieces of equipment to move and to use, so if you're not feeling adventurous, its' probably better to call a lawn service company to have that part done. f) TOP DRESS Top dressing involves putting a thinnish layer of new soil on top of your now mostly moss free lawn. This does several things. It first enables you to fill in all those little craters left in your lawn where you pulled the moss out, so you can make it all nice and level. Second, by using a product like our Cedar Grove Lawn mix or two way topsoil, a mix of sand and compost, it puts some new nutrients into the existing soil. Finally, it also give you a nice consistent base for your seed, so your lawn will fill in evenly. Generally you'll want to figure on around an inch at the minimum, maybe a little more if your lawn is really uneven and you want to level it out. You'll need one yard of soil/compost mix per 300 Square feet of lawn. After having us deliver it to you, spread it out by shovel or wheelbarrow, then use a landscape rake to get it nice and levelled out. A landscape rake is usually a solid aluminum rake, either 36 or 48" wide. The extra width makes it easier to create a nice level lawn as you spread. Again, you can purchase them, or rent from Center Tool. Once you have your soil spread and levelled, it's a good idea to run over it with a lawn roller, to compact it and help find any low areas that you need to add more soil to before you seed. You don't need to use a power plate compactor on it, ( and don't want to!) just a lawn roller, about half to 2/3 full of water. g) FERTILIZE and SEED! Now you have your beautiful, smooth base ready for your seed. First, we recommend you put a light application of "starter" fertilizer on. Scott's makes one, as do other manufacturers. You don't need a heavy application, it's just to help the existing by now stressed grass that is there, and the new seed to root faster. Next, choose a good quality, mostly perennial rye seed and apply it using a broadcast spreader, set at the medium spread amount. You don't want it so thick you see nothing but seed, but you do want a consistent, even layer of seed. Once you have spread it, taking care to keep it OUT of beds and aother garden areas, use a leaf rake to gently go over the whole area, which helps cover the seed partially and rake it into the soil. h) WATER, WATER, WATER! The number one, biggest problem we see with failure in seeding projects, is under watering. We have gotten to the point now, where we no longer will do them, without setting up temporary irrigation systems, which we do by using inexpensive battery powered timers that are programmable to water up to 4 times a day. The BEST one we've found is made by Gilmour. We've had a number of them and used them for years and they are pretty much bulletproof. I can't tell you the model number, but I know they are available on amazon.com and here is the link to the one we like. http://www.amazon.com/Gilmour-Electronic-Water-Timer-Cycles/dp/B0012XIY3E/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1205615078&sr=8-4 |