Respectfully, I have to disagree. I've dethatched lawns that have *never*
been dethatched previously (40 years plus), and while enormous piles of
thatch come up, close examination revealed no live grass at all. Perhaps
your tines are set to dig too low? Anyway, that's been my experience.

Dave

"Timothy" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 05 May 2003 07:07:14 -0700, VF wrote:

We've killed off our front yard as the first step towards putting in a
new
yard. Now comes the time to rip out the old grass, and I'm planning on
using a dethatcher (power rake) to do so. However, here in Richmond
there's rain predicted today and pretty much off and on throughout the
week.

Our yard has been brown and ready to go for a couple of weeks, but for
various reasons (long conference, travel) I haven't been able to rip out
the yard 'til now. (I wish I could have done it earlier, but there you
go.)

The question is: can I use the dethatcher effectively in or around times
of rain? Or should I just hold off for yet another week and hope next
week is better? I want to get the seed spread ASAP, and I feel bad for
my
neighbors for having to look at my wreck of a lawn.


Well in my personal opinion, if you were going to rent a thatcher,
spraying the lawn was a moot point. Thatching machines remove quite a bit
of lawn after using one. The only reason I would spray the lawn is if
I needed/wanted to change the varity of the grass it's self. Generaly I
take the crapy old mower I have and lower it to the lowest setting and mow
with it's bag on. If it's a small area, I take my string trimmer and scalp
the area. A thatcher will do a better job of it, but the 80+ dollar
rental.. yuck.
It sounds like you waited a good long while to reseed. Expect that many
weed seeds have blown in and they will sprout along with the grass seed
you have laid.........

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