Planning

It's time to start planning - no, not for our landscaping project (although, those plans have also yet to be finalized), but for grass planting. The optimal seeding window for central Indiana of August 15 - September 15 is quickly approaching. According to the Establishing Lawn Areas From Seed publication by Purdue University and University of Illinois:

It is critical to seed as early as possible within these windows. Even when seeding within these windows, waiting one week to seed may mean the stand will take 2 to 4 additional weeks to mature.

I put that to the test last year, but not this year (I hope)!

The Lawn Improvement Programs publication (also by Purdue University and University of Illinois) states that August 15 - September 1 is the optimum time to plant cool-season grasses (hm... conflicting information?). In any case, I plan to hit the early side of the window. This publication is the one I will likely be following as the other one focuses more on new seedbeds (don't want to do that again), while this one focuses on existing lawns and includes directions for both overseeding and reseeding.

First off, I've got a little secret to tell. For the past few weeks I've been pulling up undesirable grass by hand... Yes, I'm going crazy again. Just every couple of days for an hour or two at a time - nothing too crazy... no, not crazy at all... nope. Yesterday, one our neighbors walked by as I was out pulling and started talking to me. I told them that I enjoyed working in the yard and that it's kind of a hobby, to which they replied (and I quote) "A hobby?? More like an obsession!" I guess people notice more than I think! They must think I'm crazy... Oh well, I think everyone's crazy, just in different ways. There, I feel better now.

Now, back to business. I think I've made some good progress. Here's a look:

This side is nearly 100% tall fescue free

My new yard work buddy!
I'm slowly making my way this way.

It's looking a lot more uniform as a whole now and aside from the patchiness, I'd say it looks much improved over earlier this year. The Certainty herbicide I applied seems to have greatly weakened the patches of tall fescue, making them much easier to pull (which is the main reason I've even tried), but what I have found is that if I don't get the whole plant root, it grows right back... I'm continually amazed at how resilient it is.

So, as far as seeding goes, I have two options: overseeding or reseeding. Overseeding means planting seeds over the existing grass, and reseeding (as I'll define it) is killing the grass and completely reseeding. I'm really torn between the two. On the one hand, reseeding would result in a nice fresh stand of pure tall fescue-free grass, similar to last years reseeding, with the downsides of 1) the lawn not looking good for the end of summer into early fall, 2) the risk of two different color tones of grass between the new and existing grass, and 3) the grass not growing well due to the soil being too compact because I absolutely will not till it like I did last year. On the other hand, overseeding won't make the lawn look bad and likely won't result in an obvious edge between different areas of the lawn, with the downsides of 1) it may not look great mixed with the existing grass (could look patchy if colors are different), 2) I'll have to continue fighting with the tall fescue, and 3) I haven't had much success overseeding.

My general thinking at this point is that I'll overseed the areas that are free of tall fescue and reseed the areas that are still in large part either mostly dead and patchy or still has high concentration of tall fescue.

For the areas that I'm going to kill first, I'll need to give an extra week or so for the grass to die. In addition, I need to make plans to 1) purchase seed, and 2) look into either renting a aerator or finding a company do it for me. All this to say, this project begins in less than a month!