Steps for newly seeded lawns

After this stressful growing season, cool season lawns have suffered. Many gardeners have reseeded their cool season lawns. Each part of the process -- spreading seed and fertilizer, verticutting and watering -- had to be performed correctly so that the lawn makes a comeback.

The seeding process was the first step in making sure that your lawn looks great next spring. Whether you reseeded your existing lawn, or have started a new lawn, there are still steps in the process that need to be taken this fall.

First, make sure that you mow your lawn whenever the new grass reaches the 3 to 4 inches stage. Mowing at that time will encourage the new grass plants to mature. Mature grass will withstand the coming stress of cold weather, while immature grass will struggle.

If you don't mow your lawn until next spring, you may find that diseases such as damping off or pythium will infect your new lawn, and it will be damaged to the point that you will have to reseed again.

You probably watered every day when you initially seeded your lawn. Begin to back off on the watering. Make sure that your new lawn gets an inch of water each week, either from rain or from your efforts with a sprinkling system or garden hose. Continue watering until the end of October or the middle of November.

When you seeded your lawn, you should have used a new lawn starter fertilizer similar to a 9-13-7. Now you need to fertilize your lawn with a high nitrogen lawn fertilizer such as a 28-0-4. This boost of nitrogen will encourage your lawn to grow rapidly and begin to produce a strong root system.

If you didn't use a starter fertilizer when you seeded, apply that fertilizer now. Then use the 28-0-4 in about 4 weeks. You want a high concentration of phosphorous applied to your new lawn in order to encourage root production.

About 4 to 6 weeks after you have applied the 28-0-4 to your new lawn, make another application of fertilizer, called winterizer. This fertilizer, similar to a 10-0-14, will also encourage strong root development during the cool weather we experience in the fall. A good turf requires a strong root system.

Normally you think of nitrogen as a fertilizer that encourages turf grass shoot (leaf) growth. This is true except in the fall of the year. When air temperatures are cooler than soil temperatures (the environmental condition found in the are during the fall) the addition of nitrogen to your lawn's soil will encourage good root development. Therefore you want to use a winterizer with a high concentration of nitrogen.

The winterizer also has a high concentration of potassium, which is an essential nutrient that helps reduce the effects of stress on turf grasses. Even on cool season grasses, cold weather is considered a stress on the plants.

Finally, you will probably find that weed seeds have germinated in your lawn as the new grass seed has germinated. If you purchased quality seed, the weed seed was not mixed in with the grass seed. Weed seed lays dormant for many years in soils. When you managed your lawn to encourage grass germination, you also brought many weed seeds out of dormancy, and they germinated with your new grass.

If you find that your new lawn has a lot of weeds in it, apply Trimec in liquid form to your lawn. You can do this on a day when temperatures are 40 degrees or above. The speed with which the herbicide works will depend upon temperatures and how fast the weeds are growing. Do not apply Trimec on your new lawn until after you have mowed it once or twice.

Establishing a new lawn, or re-establishing an old one, requires certain management practices to take place in a specific order. If you want to make sure that your efforts are effective in producing a great looking lawn next spring, there are still some steps that need to be taken.

Send your gardening and landscape questions to Paul Schnare at P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to news@semissourian.com.