How do you ensure grass come Spring?

November 6, 2005 1:46 PM

What do I do now in autumn, to get a jump start on growing grass in spring?

Hi. I recently moved into an actual house, and have to do all the maintainence stuff that home owners do. Upon raking what seemed like several years worth of dead leaves from the backyard, I've come to realize that my new backyard is mostly dirt and onion grass. Lots and lots of onion grass. Once I've figured out how to get rid of all of this, what should I do before Winter comes to make sure I can grow grass come Spring? I should mention that the soil is rather sandy. How sandy? I'm a block and a half off the local shelling beach.

posted by FunkyHelix to home & garden (7 comments total)

Ooh. Well, you're probably too far north to seed at this point (germination requires soil in the 60-70°F range). If onion grass is anything like nutgrass, you're in for years of hand-weeding!

I would almost consider just zapping it all with grass & weed killer, and seeding and fertilizing in the spring. Or you could try seeding to get something in the ground. The problem is that the bulb-based grasses tend to come out earlier, so unlike broadleaf weeds, just growing a healthy lawn won't outcompete very easily. You may ask your neighbors what their experiences have been with this grass -- it is possible that it's only taken over through neglect and you can fight it off by doing basic lawn-creation duties.
posted by dhartung at 3:47 PM on November 6, 2005

Has the ground already frozen in NJ.
If so, it's probably too late to do anything really useful.
I'd be planning for an early spring start.

Also, depending on how bad your lawn is, you might want to start pricing some sod options.
You can easily spend far more in time and money trying to revive a lawn than it would take just to resod it.
posted by madajb at 1:18 AM on November 7, 2005

This is the perfect time to overseed your lawn. Get a fescue seed blend, which will be drought-tolerant and will be lower maintenance. Spread it everywhere. See what happens in the spring...if your lawn improves, keep overseeding every fall. If not, you may need to restore your lawn. That's not a bad thing...it will allow you to put down the topsoil that you might not actually have.

I live in Plymouth, MA and have very similar soil, and overseeding with fescues worked very well against our plethora of weedy grasses.

Info about coping with your lawn.

You might also want to consider alternatives to lawn, such as areas of ornamental native grasses, wildflowers, or mosses.

(These links are sort of MA-centric, but make a lot of sense for coastal NJ as well.)
posted by nekton at 7:40 AM on November 7, 2005

Your "coping" link doesn't work.
posted by languagehat at 7:42 AM on November 7, 2005

Extra "http://" in there.

This should do it.
posted by nekton at 12:43 PM on November 7, 2005

Last one.
posted by nekton at 12:46 PM on November 7, 2005

Third time lucky! Thanks.
posted by languagehat at 1:32 PM on November 7, 2005