Dad’s Blue Ribbon Lawn

The fact that my video for this didn’t save is a downright shame! My husband definitely took one for the team last weekend. You see, as I am sure many can relate with, our lawn has been neglected (along with MANY other household maintenance chores!) and since fall is a great time to plant grass we decided to start prepping for it. My

Dad’s Blue Ribbon Lawn

dad takes great pride in maintaining his lawn like a pro, so I went to him for advice. He directed me to his grass guru at Tim’s Turf & Landscaping Materials in Litchfield NH. I described our front lawn that bakes in the blazing sun all summer with no irrigation and explained that we have held the belief that if it is green and can be mowed that it didn’t necessarily have to be grass… He nodded his head and smiled (Likely wondering why we didn’t just pave it! But hey if paving wasn’t so crazy expensive and we could afford to, we would do the driveway!! – Which would surely help the lawn because snow blowing gravel, salt and sand onto the lawn definitely isn’t helping it! But I digress…)

We were instructed to mow one click lower than normal followed by dethatching the lawn in multiple directions and then finally make a pass or two over the lawn with the mower to pick up all the fluff and weeds that got pulled up. I sincerely apologize to anyone driving by while my husband did this because considering I couldn’t see him in the thick cloud of dust, I imagine the cars driving past might have had a moment of fear when they couldn’t see either! (I should also apologize for their filthy cars if they ended up looking anything like ours by the time we were done! – So you can imagine how my husband looked! I wasn’t kidding when I said he took one for the team!)

Tracey’s Lawn

According to the grass guru, our next step is to put down several inches of loam (if we choose to – not required), seed at ½ rate both vertically and horizontally across the entire lawn, apply starter fertilizer, go over the entire lawn one more time with the dethatcher and then walk away. Put the timer for the sprinklers on for 10 minutes at 8am, noon and 4pm and wait for the magic to happen.

What do we think of these instructions? If my dad’s lawn is the result of his tutelage, I should have no reason to doubt the grass guru. His lawn is like a meticulously maintained golf course! But the grass guru himself told me that he can’t take full credit for my father’s lawn. He said that there are many other factors to consider; quality of the loam, depth of the loam, sun conditions, irrigation… Needless to say, considering how many times my husband and I have tried to get grass to grow, I would have to admit that if I’m being realistic, I know that we are fighting a losing battle unless we start over completely – which is NOT in the budget right now!

Tracey’s Lawn

We have committed to one load of loam to fill the low spots, the seed and starter fertilizer that we purchased from Tim’s Turf and a timer to run the sprinklers as instructed.  However, I’m curious about something… Prior to meeting the grass guru, I had been doing some research on how to have better success with our lawn without spending a lot of money. Obviously, an irrigation system would likely make the biggest difference. For this year at least, hoses on a timer will have to do. But I also read that for dry, sandy soil, the addition of peat moss after seeding would be highly beneficial. Since this wasn’t mentioned as one of our instructions from the grass guru, I am now wondering whether we should throw caution to the wind and add it or just follow his instructions and hope for the best.  Does anyone have any experience using peat moss on a newly seeded lawn? Or any other advice they want to throw our way? I look forward to any suggestions that could save us from having to do this again (and again!). I will be seeding this weekend and may just do my own experiment of half the lawn with and half the lawn without the peat moss and see what happens!  Stay tuned! More photos to follow as it comes along (HOPEFULLY!)