The calm before the storm

A barred owl hoots outside the window as I sit here trying to plan my day for tomorrow... Yes, I'm taking the day off tomorrow to plant some grass seed! I am pretty excited about it actually. I love plants and especially watching them grow - it's a pretty amazing thing when you think about it.

Here's what our lawn looks like today:

The RoundUp sure did it's job well. Bye, bye tall fescue! Now, I need to fix the collateral damage...

This weekend I found out that Home Depot rents both aerators and power overseeders. I went to check them out, mostly to see if I was going to be able to get them in my car. It looked like I would be able to pull it off and the gentleman helping me seemed pretty confident as well. The cost, however, was a little more than I was expecting, which got me thinking that perhaps it might be more cost effective to hire someone to do it. So I made some calls and got two estimates. They were polar opposites on many levels.

The first estimate I got was from a guy I later found out was doing this kind of work as a side job and as I talked with him he actually shared with me that he learned what he knew by hiring 5 companies to work on his lawn and watching what they do... His suggestions were a little out there. First, he said that I shouldn't have killed the existing grass and that with overseeding, it would take over the undesirable grass over time. While I really highly doubt that, I'm open to the possibility. However, it's too late for that since I already killed it all, so that is no longer an option (and I probably wouldn't have gone for it even if it was). Then as we talked he suggested that I wait until mid-September to seed... Obviously, he's not familiar with the Purdue turf grass program publications, but I appreciated his suggestion anyway. When I told him that I'd like to do it now, he suggested I aerate it very aggressively - finally, we're on the same page. And then, this when I about lost it... he suggested I purchase a 50 lb bag of seed to seed it with! I couldn't believe my ears. He was standing right in our front lawn looking out upon the 1600 sq ft. of lawn - 50 lbs?! That comes out to over 31 lbs/1000 sq ft! The recommended rate for Kentucky bluegrass is 1.5 - 2 lbs/1000 sq ft... In the end he offered to aerate it for a very reasonable price, actually very close to the cost of renting it, but I wasn't too impressed with his expertise.

The second estimate I got was the complete opposite. I didn't get the chance to discuss it with them, but along with their estimate they provided a color print of a Purdue turf program publication. That right there was enough to give them much more credibility. Unfortunately, their estimate was extremely high. I may call to see if there is a particular reason for it being so high, just out of curiosity.

Anyway, ultimately, I ended up deciding to do it myself, and since I want to get moving on it ASAP and I wasn't going to be available this weekend, I decided to take a day off of work. I did the same thing last year... however, this year I'm expecting that I'll actually be done and planted in a day instead of working on it every evening until the sun goes down for a week after.

Oh, and if you hadn't noticed, I'm not planning on doing any tilling after all. I'm just going to aerate and then overseed with a power overseeder. Tilling it would cause a setback due to the time it takes for the soil to settle, and I did a little research on compaction (primarily this article) and found that perhaps our soil isn't as compacted as I thought - at least that's what I'm hoping for, anyway.

In any case, I'm going to give it a whirl and see what happens - "experimentation" at it's best! If there is green grass in the dead areas by the end of fall, I'll be a happy man!