Too late to plant grass seed?

[Anonymous]

I had some spots I wanted to fill in. Too late in season?

[Anonymous]

I just planted some yesterday. It’s pushing it but the next two weeks, at least, aren’t pushing freezing in the immediate Beltway area. The soil temps and daytime highs are in a good range. If you’re further north maybe more a problem.

I’m sure someone will say it’s too late but I’ve done ok this time of year before.

[Anonymous]

Normally maybe but it's warm. You have to water those areas daily for at least 2 weeks.

[Anonymous]

Never too late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had some spots I wanted to fill in. Too late in season?

No too late, but at this point do it immediately. Another 7-10 days and it might be too late. Seed needs warm daytime temps to germinate.

[Anonymous]

We just did ours over the weekend. It should be fine given the temps.

[Anonymous]

It is too late - we barely break 60 in the next 10 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is too late - we barely break 60 in the next 10 days.

Depends. Cool season grasses typically germinate in the 50-65 degree range.

[Anonymous]

I would hold off now. Wait another 4 weeks, then winter over seed.

[Anonymous]

If you do seed, sprinkle it with Scotts Starter fertilizer and cover it with straw.

[Anonymous]

DP. Just did spot overseed with pre-germinated turf type tall fescue (TTTF) today to give the seed a fighting chance before hitting the ground. Daily soil temps get to the low 60s during the day in the sun so still a chance at least in NoVA area. Check precip.ai website and enter zipcode for daily/near real time soil temps (or get a temp probe, I suppose). i like it better than the Yard Mastery app (or maybe it's wishful thinking on my part since it was showing warmer soil temps). Saw a southern MD Lawn Lab youtuber show how he did seed in late Oct thru Nov last year - it worked but just took longer. I figured it was close enough to our NoVA conditions.

This is round 3 overseed in October in Northern VA area: 1st was Oct 7 (testing pregerminated seed in a flooded/oversaturated area that needed some reno part 1; 2nd was Oct 18 on sunny portion of yard as near lawn reno after nuking weeds; 3rd was today in the oversaturated area on the bare dirt backfill after removing a temp french drain/trench.

1) 10/7 seed - did great! Did 2nd mow today (first mow probably didn't cut much but existing grass was getting high and I knew I needed to put in more dirt and reseed some of that area anyway due to adjacent drainage issue
2) 10/18 seed - starting to sprout now - delay due to getting pregerminated seed down late and dried out and then the cold temps hit - new popups just today in the afternoon sun
3) 10/26 seed (10-13sqft area) - seeds were more primed and about to germinate probably in the next 12hrs - we will see how they do in the lower temps and the oversaturated area is still, well, oversaturated so some areas may just be too wet and under water at certain pooling spots

Of note, the areas that had leafgro thrown down as light layer on top sprouted first compared to bare clay/soil with seed on top. The leaf compost does wash away some even with the basic water but sprouts occurred there first consistently accept those that maybe had too heavy of a hand of leafgro thrown down. I didn't use formal 'starter' fertilizer per se but I did mix the pregerminated seed with milorganite so effectively my it was my starter fertilizer with the seed. This round 3 I was out of milorganize for just the few oz of grass seed so I mixed with sand and some topsoil. Mixing the pre-germ seed with milorganite was much easier to even distribute if you are spot seeding by hand. You can see the seed and density better than when it is mixed in sand and I ended up putting down a lot more seed when it was mixed in the sand and harder to see and adjust as quickly.

[Anonymous]

Bare areas this year were a total fail for me. But areas with existing grass and some limited cover did well. I don't have a sprinkler system so watering was inconsistent. Next year I plan to get a delivery of top soil to help with the bare areas. I thought about throwing some compost/seed mix down this weekend but just too late.

[Anonymous]

OP I would still add seed now. We have a history of “unseasonably “ warm weather all the way to the end of December. I believe that any sprout is better than none before spring when pre emergent herbicides eliminate the possibility to seed.

[Anonymous]

Cold snap coming in a week. I would hold off at this point. It will die.