New Lawn - Patchy??

Hi all, seeded a new lawn about 7 weeks ago, it's been growing for the past 4 weeks and from certain angles now looks green all over and about 3 inches high, from above though it's very patchy with areas with little or no growth, is this normal? Do I just leave it and will it eventually cover up or should I be adding more seed to these areas? I thought about doing this but raking the seed is going to be almost impossible?

 

I would have thought that you would need to sow more seeds to these areas. I have the exact same problem even though I seeded roughly two weeks ago. I am going to seed in the patches tonight. the plan is to rake then water lightly, before casting the seeds. I've also been told to use a roller on the grass once it has been cut. This encourages side shoots to form thereby helping to fill in the patches, why not try this instead.

 

Hi Spendleb,

It's quite normal to have patchy areas when the seed starts germinating - if it only looks patchy from above, I wouldn't worry about it as it will thicken up with mowing, and as gardenangel says, light rolling.

If you had larger patches it might be worth re-seeding them, but it sounds as though with a bit of fertiliser (if you haven't already) and mowing, it'll soon thicken up. You have to remember that the temperatures haven't really been on our side so far, and the chances are that what you are seeing at the moment is the initial shoots, with no tillering as yet.

If you want to add more seed though, there's no reason not to - as long as you don't rake out the existing seedlings.

Just a final tip - don't use a cylinder mower on the lawn for the first few cuts - a rotary is less likely to rip out the seedlings (and it's a lot cheaper if you find any stones you missed with a rotary )

 

Don't have a roller, is there any other way of doing this without one?

 

You'll be fine without a roller - it just helps to thicken the sward a bit (actually a lot of people would debate that but I think it helps).

Just start mowing, not too short - you shouldn't remove any more than 1/3 the total leaf height - if I were you I'd try to remove a about half an inch if the seedlings are about 3 inches. And if you haven't added fertiliser, now is the time to do it. You'll be amazed how quickly it starts to thicken up

 

By fertiliser, do you mean Lawn Food available from garden centres? I bought a box at the weekend just in case?

Cheers,

 

It depends - if it is a straighforward NPK feed, it'll be fine. You ought to steer clear of anything containing weed killer, moss killer or Iron for a few months though, as the seedlings won't be strong enough to cope with that just yet.

 

Yeah, it's just a standard feed, will leave the weed killer until next year as they are already poppping their unwelcome heads up between the blades of grass!

 

:D

Don't be too worried about the weeds - a newly seed lawn always looks terrible because of weed seeds in the soil, as well as seeds that blow in and find a nice bare area to colonise.

Most of them will disappear when you start mowing - it's only the prostrate growing ones that will persist, and you can take your wrath out on them next year

 

I would add one point, have you had extremes of rain and dessicating dry winds (we have up here in East Scotland) This can cause problems with emerging seeds (encouraged to germinate by heavy rain and then hammered by dessicating wind). This, alongside the spring weed flush, is why autumn takes are often better. I wouldn't wait too long before oversowing and watering.