Overseeding existing lawn?

[311Hemi]

My lawn is roughly 3 years old and it seems that I did not use the right mix of seed in certain sunny areas of the yard (more sun than I originally thought). I would like to overseed to try to get a more sun tolerant grass growing in these areas, the shaded areas of my lawn are doing pretty good. The areas of sun are near as thick and plush as the shaded areas. My area is sandy soil...so that does not help but the yard came in pretty well.

Anyone have any real word results of just throwing down new seed, fertilize with a starter, and then rake it in and water?

Am I better off trying to rent one of the machines and going over the whole yard, although it would not be easy for me to water the whole yard every day. I am more concerned with the back yard, so I could just do that area to begin with. Would I have a lot better results doing it this way?

What do you do about mowing or pet traffic if you overseed?

[RumRiverRat]

Mow the grass short and lightly rake the areas to be overseeded to break up the surface of the soil slightly.

Appply Seed and Starter Fertilizer.

Keep moist.

I will be doing my entire front yard this weekend.

[hotrod1]

Mow it short, use a slitseeder if you can get one , fertilize, water.

If want even better results, you could rent an aerifier and aerify your lawn before slitseeding. that way, the slitseeder will drop seed in the holes from the aerifier and the grooves the slitseeder makes as well as bust up the plugs.

[RumRiverRat]

Well it has been a week and I can see the new grass emerging.

This is perfect weather for getting seed started.

[311Hemi]

Good to hear!

I got mine done before the rain on Friday. Hopefully all goes well and I have some new grass showing in a few weeks.

[311Hemi]

How long should I wait to mow again after overseeding? It's been a week and a half a half so far and I see some new grass in the areas I patched with dirt/seed. The rest of the yard I just used a drop spreader to drop seed on the existing lawn after dethatching.

[hotrod1]

If the existing lawn is getting long, I would maybe raise the height of the mower and try mowing and check that the mower isn't pulling the new grass out of the ground. I would continue mowing like this for 2 or 3 weeks then try going down to your normal height.

Also, I would consider pushing the new grass to grow with another app of fertilizer now that it is starting to come in.