My father had a way with lawns, and always added a light coating of good
soil in the fall (he called it side dressing), then spread the seed,
then raked with a leaf rake, to shake the seed down to ground level.
When I do an area, I like to cover it with cheesecloth (actually the
plastic equivalent) which lets the sun, air, and rain through, but keeps
the birds from feasting on my seed. I take the cheesecloth up after the
seed has germinated. Some people use a coating of straw to serve the
same purpose, but I think they risk uprooting the new grass when they
rake it off, and around here the cheesecloth is easier to get than
straw, and reusable.

sherwindu wrote:
I have a lawn which I inherited 15 years ago, on purchasing my home. It
appears to be a mixture of several kinds of lawn grasses, plus clover,
crab grass, and weeds(which I continually pull out). My thought was to
spread grass seed over it and try to get it to look more uniform. My
grass also shows no tolerance to dry spells, although I have been giving
it plenty of 10-10-10 fertilizer. What preparations
should I do for overseeding, and what is the best time to do it? Can I
simply drop the seeds onto the lawn, or should I first add some top soil
for the seeds to take hold? What kind of grass seed will be drought
resistant here in the Midwest?

Sherwin D.


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