Fall Fertilizer and Overseeding Techniques

Overseeding your lawn can improve the quality and health of your lawn, it’s one of the most effective things you can do, here is a good breakdown of techniques for fertilizing your grass in the fall.

Spreading seed over the lawn and watering is the basic process, however doing it correctly is the difficult part.

Click here to Read Watering Guidelines by Grass Type.

Also, to take into account that not every grass type requires overseeding, the main types are fine fescue, tall fescue, perennial and annual ryegrass, occasionally bermuda grass depending on the location as far as seasonal temperature.

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Overseeding your lawn in fall is the perfect time due to the cooler weather. Younger grass will have two to three months of healthy weather to grow and become better established with its surroundings, this means deeper roots as an example.

Fall overseeding can prevent weeds that can grow in the summer heat, such as crabgrass, foxtails and other weeds.

There is more rain in the fall giving the grass more nutrients as well as increasing the growth rate for when you overseed the lawn.

You want to make sure you aerate the soil for before overseeding begins, this means the seed you spread will reach deeper parts of the grass in the ground, especially the deeper roots.

Now that the ground has been aerated, we can look at lawn fertilization, first off, we want to start with pre-emergent herbicide, this is used to prevent the growth of crabgrass or other harmful weeds that can grow into the roots of the lawn.

Its critical to make sure not to apply the herbicide too early, this can get washed away due to being too deep in the soil and the rain water will wash it away, also to take into account that if you apply it too late, the key enzyme inhibited will no longer be active meaning it won’t actually do anything.

Once you have applied the pre-emergent (read instructions on container) you need to apply a second application 6-8 weeks later, this provides another layer of coverage in the mid to late summer when crab grass can still germinate.

After covering the pre-emergent, we can start looking at post-emergent, this normally occurs once the lawn is in a fully growing state – however! You need to consult the product label to make sure, as different emergent require different application times, some are applied whilst the lawn is still dormant as an example.

Just like pre-emergent, you want to apply well and make sure the ground has been aerated for best effect, this will give the grass the best chance of growing healthy and strong, once the turf has started to grow well, you are ready for the first cut.

However, consult in the product label for pre-emergent again as some emergent need a different routine so you may have to wait for the first cut