Hydroseed Question?

[Finlander]

We had our lawn hydroseeded by some newby landscapers lawn boys that thought they knew what they were doing! Well after two months gone by and all we have is a Hydroweed lawn! I mean mega weeds! They didn't even get rid of the existing weeds before they hydrseeded. Plus they used 10,000 gallon of our tap water to fill there tank! Now isn't hydroseed supposed to be pre-soaked for a certain amount of time so the seeds will sprout ASAP after spreading the seed?

Doe's anybody know the exact science of hydroseeding?

Could you tell me before we take the newby landscapers to small claims court?

[Steve Foss]

Finnlander:

You can phone them and tell them about the problem. Ask them to come over and look at it. Then ask them to do the job over at no cost to you. There's still plenty of time to get a hydroseeded lawn in this year and have it be great and healthy. If they don't give you satisfaction, tell them you're taking them to small claims court.

But before you do any of that, take pictures of your so-called lawn. Wide angle shots as well as close-ups to show the domination by weeds and the lack of grass seed germination. In small claims court, you are your own lawyer, and you need to amass all the evidence you can, including receipts, your written recollection of what happened and when, and your written documentation of your attempts to contact the seeders and get satisfaction, as well as whatever replies (or non replies) they make and their attempts, if any, to satisfy you. If you want to get them to pay in court, you are more likely to succeed if you've shown you've contacted them and tried to get them to fix the problem before you hit the courthouse.

To do it right, a hydroseeder (or any lawn seeder) makes sure the weeds are killed before the seed is applied. We used to prep a hydroseeding project by killing the existing lawn with roundup, if there was a lawn, waiting until it was dead, tilling it up and raking out the dead stuff, then smoothing it with rakes to make it ready for the seeding.

With hydroseeding, we soaked the grass seed for a day in advance. But that was just to make sure it germinated really fast and made a customer feel better faster. The right mix of water, seed and mulch, when the seed is not pre-soaked, will do a great job.

If we came to a job on new construction, we'd roundup whatever weeds had already sprouted in the new topsoil, then till it (if needed) rake it and level it, waiting until the time period for roundup to biodegrade had passed before seeding.

Eventually, we wouldn't take a hydroseeding project on a whole lawn unless there was an underground sprinkler system installed, because no matter how hard we tried, there were a certain number of customers using hoses and portable sprinklers who didn't keep the mixture wet enough to make everything happen right.