It’s that time of the year again; time to start thinking
about seeding your lawn before it gets too cold and you have to leave it until
next spring.
Technically, you can get away with sowing your grass seed
until October if you’re lucky, but it’s best to get the task completed well before
the end of the season to avoid any inclement weather that might catch you
unawares and cancel out all of your hard work.
If we’ve been lucky enough to have unusually dry weather through
to September, make sure that after seeding, you keep the seedbed moist until
the grass has grown to 6cm. Keep it
watered with a fine spray rather than a high pressure hose that can displace
your newly planted seeds.
Many garden experts recommend waiting until September before
sowing grass seeds because it makes it easier to spot germinated weeds and get
rid of them, and also the weather will be cooling down so you won’t need to
water the seeds quite as much as if you sow them in spring or summer. The ground
should still be fairly warm and moist which will give the seeds a good start
before the winter sets in. If sowed early enough, by mid-autumn your grass seeds
should have grown a decent root system which will hopefully keep them going
throughout any difficult conditions over the winter months.
For a successful lawn, the soil needs to be warm enough to
support the seed germination, so getting the grass seeding completed before the
weather starts to cool down gives you a better chance of having an enviable
lawn next summer. The optimal temperature for the soil is around 6-8 degrees as
that’s the minimum temperature that’s needed for the seeds to germinate, in
practical terms, this translates to an air temperature of 10 degrees or above.
Once you’ve sowed the seeds, keep an eye out for any weeds,
which are always a menace in newly sown lawns. It doesn’t matter how high
quality your chosen grass seed is, or how careful you are about getting your
seed bed prepared, there will always be weeds waiting in the wings because they
are already there in the soil. The best way to control any marauding weeds that
germinate from the 'seed bank' in your lawn is to mow them out.
