Adding new grass seed to an existing lawn is a great way to repair bare spots or to improve the lawn’s health, thickness and overall appearance. This process is referred to as “over-seeding”. However, sowing seed directly onto a lawn with hard soil and even a small layer of thatch is guaranteed to produce very poor results. For best results, we recommend a 5-step approach:
Mow your lawn to a height of 1 ½”
- Water your lawn the evening before you aerate
- Aerate your lawn*
- Once aeration is done, over seed
- Top-dress your lawn
*Aeration can be done with a core aerator machine, manual aerator tools or even cleated shoes. If you only have a small area in which you need to plant new grass seed, you can use a steel tine rake to scarify and loosen the native soil.
Our Topdressing Mix is a perfect medium for germinating grass seed. Just add a starter fertilizer and water regularly. Golf courses use a similar mix for repairing divots and bare spots.
Our PRO-SERIES Topdressing Mix and our PRO-SERIES Lawn Repair Mix includes 80 lbs. of PENNMULCH per yard to each blend. PENNMULCH seed accelerator is a pelleted seeding mulch uniquely formulated to include starter fertilizer (equivalent of 10-20-5) to support quick grass-seed germination to establish new or repaired turf.
Adaptable to any soil type, PENNMULCH is ideal for establishing a thicker, healthier lawn in one convenient application. When PENNMULCH gets wet, it expands and then dries, holding the seed in place. This will provide an almost 100% seed germination rate, resulting in nice, full turf. It also is safe for people, pets and the environment.
If you’d like to take a more “natural” approach without adding a starter fertilizer, try one of our soil blends for the lawn that incorporates compost or peat.
Tim’s Original Garden Mix turns up the power of our Topdressing Mix with the addition of organic compost – also known as “Black Gold”.
When you are over-seeding your lawn, the mushroom compost in the Enriched Topsoil Mix and in our Premium Topsoil Mix provides optimal topdressing as opposed to simply covering the seed with topsoil. Acting as a type of slow-release, organic plant fertilizer, the mushroom compost in the Enriched Topsoil and Premium Topsoil Mix helps hold moisture against the seeds so they can germinate faster while preventing birds from eating them and wind from scattering them.
Our Peat Topdresing Mix and our Peat Lawn Repair Mix incorporates peat into both blends. Peat is not commonly used as a standalone product. In fact, by itself it’s not a good growing medium beyond starting seeds from scratch. Even though peat can help your soil retain nutrients, it hardly contains any nutrients at all in and of itself. Peat also doesn’t add sufficient nutrients to the soil for healthy plant growth on its own so that is why we add other organic components like topsoil along with it.
Peat serves as an excellent organic amendment, enriching the soil with organic matter as it decomposes further over time. This enrichment fosters a favorable environment for beneficial microorganisms that contribute to soil health and also serves as a great media for planting grass seed.
At Tim Wallace Supply we offer many lawn mix options for over-seeding:
Tim’s Original Garden Mix
50% topsoil, 25% fine sand and 25% organic compost
Top dressing Mix (also a perfect base for laying sod)
50% topsoil and 50% fine sand
Enriched Topsoil Mix
50% topsoil and 50% mushroom compost
Premium Topsoil Mix
50% topsoil, 25% fine sand and 25% mushroom compost
Lawn Repair Mix
50% topsoil, 25% fine sand, 25% Purple Cow Classic Compost
PRO-SERIES Topdressing Mix
50% topsoil, 50% find sand, 80lbs. PENNMULCH
PRO-SERIES Lawn Repair Mix
50% topsoil, 25 % fine sand, 25% Purple Cow Classic Compost, 80lb. PENNMULCH
Peat Topdressing Mix
75% topsoil, 25% Peat
Peat Lawn Repair Mix
50% topsoil, 25% fine sand, 25% Peat
PRO-SERIES with Peat
50% topsoil, 25% fine sand, 25% peat, 80 lb. PennMulch
All of our Soil Mixes for Lawn Over-seeding are available for pickup or delivery. Garden Mix and Top-dressing Mix are kept ready, and can be picked up in 1/2 cubic yard increments. All other lawn over-seeding mixes are blended “on demand” by the full cubic yard. Our delivery minimum is 2 cubic yards. Call us at (630) 759-1080 to set up your home delivery.
