Take these steps to start your lawn the right way

I dedicate this column to almost any of the 20 or so people who have asked me about starting (or restarting) their lawns in the past two weeks. We really do need to talk!

I think a lot of it comes from these ads we see on TV where the cartoon guys come in, roll out new carpet, and the house looks spectacular, all within the same 30-second commercial. There seem to be homeowners who expect that same sudden miracle when it comes to laying down sod.

You can’t just spread out beautiful new sod out on top of old grass like a tablecloth! How can it ever root into the ground? How will you ever get rid of all those weeds that were the reason you hated the old lawn? How will you ever get it smoothed out to get rid of the bumps and humps that made mowing such an awful experience?

C’mon now, gardener. You don’t lay new carpet down on top of the old stuff. You take time to remove that dirty old carpet and the squashed down old padding. You even vacuum up the dust and dirt. (You do, don’t you?)

Give that new sod a fighting chance. Apply a glyphosate weedkiller (no other active ingredient included in it) to kill off all the existing vegetation. Give it 10 days to do its job. Mow the lawn really close to get rid of the stubble, then use a rear-tine rototiller to cultivate it to a depth of 4 inches. Tillers with the tines behind the wheels do a far better job of pulverizing the soil, making it much easier to rake the ground smooth. Establish a grade that drains away from the house.

People have been asking about “overseeding” their lawns with bermudagrass to get them to thicken up. They don’t always say it, but I’m left to assume that they already have bermuda, but for whatever the reason, it’s not as thick as they’d like.

Apparently those people haven’t seen bermudagrass seed. It’s as fine as specks of black pepper. They’re thinking about overseeding lawns with ryegrass seed in September, and they’ve seen that seed. It’s 20 times larger than bermuda seed, and barring flooding rains, it pretty much stays where you put it.

But bermudagrass seeds are so tiny that they must be sown onto that same kind of freshly tilled soil that I described for sodding. Plus, you need to combine it with equal amounts of corn meal so that you can distribute it evenly over the soil. So, there I go bursting another dream bubble for a hopeful gardener. It’s sad. I know the truth hurts.

I’m not sure what the motive is when people ask, “How late can I start my new lawngrass?” I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re moving into a new house that isn’t quite finished yet, so I’ll answer accordingly. (As opposed to their being unwilling to work in the heat of early August.)

To some small degree, the answer depends on the type of grass that you’re planting. St. Augustine is our most cold-sensitive turfgrass here in the Fort Worth/North Texas area. It really needs to be planted no later than early September, and mid-August would be infinitely better. Remember that our first killing freeze last year was the last week of October. That would have been devastating to St. Augustine planted late in the game.

Zoysia can be planted into early September, but it turns brown with the first killing frost. Again, August planting would be far better. Bermuda is best for later planting. I’ve seen landscape contractors plant bermuda all the way through the winter in emergency situations and get by with it, but again, if you expect it to take root and withstand pedestrian pressure, August and early September would be best.

As for seeding bermuda, you really need to get that done as quickly as possible. Bermudagrass grows well in hot weather. True, you’ll have to water the newly planted seed and seedlings morning and evening for 5-10 minutes each time, but the grass will take off and run if you plant it now. Wait until September and it probably won’t do very much. From Labor Day on I really suggest that people switch over to a temporary cover of annual ryegrass from seed instead. As it dies out in May they can rototill and start their new bermuda lawn and get a full season for it to mature.

Perhaps my most frightening question I’ve been asked in the past two weeks, however, came from a homeowner who, like many of the others, was just fed up with the looks of her lawn. She asked if it would be permissible just to burn it all off before replanting her new lawn. I’ve actually seen people do that. Like the neighbors back in Bryan when I was in the first grade. Their house used to be right across the street from the house that we lived in.

“Used to be,” as in past tense.

You can hear Neil Sperry on KLIF 570AM on Saturday afternoons 1-3 pm and on WBAP 820AM Sunday mornings 8-10 am. Join him at www.neilsperry.com and follow him on Facebook.

This story was originally published August 6, 2020 at 12:00 PM.