How to Prepare Your Lawn for Fall Seeding

Tired of reseeding your lawn every year? The secret to avoiding unnecessary costs is proper lawn preparation!

 

This is great news, as it not only saves you money and time but also produces healthier turf that will have lasting beauty for years to come. 

 

You’ll want to tell your neighbors about these simple steps for preparing a lawn for fall seeding. Because, like most homeowners, they’ve likely been misled about how often this service should be performed.

 

Fall Seeding Topics in this Article: 

 

• Soil Testing for Fall Seeding
• Weed Control Protects New Grass
• Grub Treatment
• Summer Lime Application 
• Lawn Science’s Unique Approach to Fall Seeding 
• Optimal Seeding Timeline
• Additional Tips for Fall Seeding Preparation
• Conclusion

 

Step one is crucial.

Soil Testing for Fall Seeding

 

Basic soil tests leave key parts of the story out. Parts that lead to disappointing seeding results.

 

Extensive soil testing ensures you know exactly what’s happening beneath your lawn’s surface. In-depth soil analysis provides you with precise soil pH and nutrient levels. With accurate readings, you’ll know which additives (and amounts) are needed to improve your soil. More on this below when we talk about lime. 

 

First, here’s what can go wrong with basic soil tests: 

 

• Results are often skewed by taking samples from only a few convenient sections of the property.
• Repeated testing in the same location can alter soil structure and give inconsistent readings.
• Some soil tests don’t include measures of uncertainty or variability.
• Variations in moisture between samples can impact readings.

 

Professional soil testing helps you avoid these common testing problems, while providing deeper analysis. Once you’re better acquainted with your soil and its needs, take on the weeds.

 

Weed Control Protects New Grass

Seeding your lawn when it’s full of weeds is an uphill battle you should avoid. New grass will struggle as stronger, more established weeds rob it of moisture, nutrients, and space.

 

Thankfully, it’s easy to handle the visible weeds as you head into fall. 

 

A late summer weed spray will eliminate these pesky weeds, providing a clean runway for your newly planted grass to take off. However, be patient and wait two to three weeks after spraying before you start seeding. This ensures you didn’t miss any weeds (after seeding, it’ll be too late to spray missed weeds as you’ll kill the new grass).

 

The best way to control weeds without a constant battle is to invest in comprehensive lawn care. A healthy lawn works, blade by blade, to overwhelm and choke out weeds. Comprehensive care includes ideal timing to help stay ahead of aggravating weeds. 

 

Weed management from March to mid-April is a key to protecting your turf and getting the best results months later when doing fall seeding. Dreaded crabgrass, foxtail, and goosegrass start germinating when the soil begins hitting 55 to 60 degrees regularly. As temps continue to rise, broadleaf weeds rear their ugly heads. 

 

Weeds aren’t the only pest to watch for, though.

Grub Treatment

At Lawn Science, we don’t take any chances with grubs. These hungry grass vampires can ruin giant chunks of your lawn by attacking the all-important grass roots. And it’s not only a one-time attack. Grub infestations often become a vicious cycle as they mature into beetles, lay more eggs, and continually feed on the lawn year after year.

 

Controlling grubs is a must for your existing turf. But it affects seeding as well. You could follow every other best practice for fall seeding and still be devastated by these invasive pests if you don’t take action against them.

 

That’s why we take preventative measures right after doing an extensive soil test to prepare for fall seeding. We apply an innovative grub treatment to protect your lawn from potential grub threats. The timing is, again, intentional. The treatment catches adult beetles laying eggs, which will hatch surrounded by the treated soil, ending the grubs’ life cycle.

 

The immediate next step (often a “misstep”) is unique to Connecticut.

Summer Lime Application 

A summer lime application is always needed when preparing for fall lawn seeding in our area. Wait. What if the soil test we discussed shows your pH level is where it needs to be? 

 

That’s where our lab coats come in handy. Raincoats too! See, Connecticut’s rain is highly acidic. You may be unaware, but this type of rain can cause “nutrient leaching,” robbing the grass of essential nutrients. Turf grass may be negatively affected through stunted growth or yellowing due to the soil becoming acidic. 

 

This unhealthy state opens your lawn up to more potential problems, as pests and diseases love attacking weakened plants. 

 

The bottom line is every time it rains here, it decreases your soil’s pH. That makes it impossible to get this aspect of the soil testing just right since it’s always in flux. No problem, though. Applying lime in preparation for fall seeding levels out the pH, optimizing the soil for root development and turf growth.

 

This approach pays you positive dividends for up to a decade. 

 

Lawn Science’s Unique Approach to Fall Seeding 

When your lawn care provider understands how vital the soil’s pH level is right before seeding, you’re eliminating the need for endless reseeding. Though it’s common in the landscaping industry, it is 100% unnecessary to seed your lawn every year. 

 

Some companies even recommend seeding in the spring and fall. Again, that goes against seeding science and is wasteful. Please, only seed in the fall.

 

If you follow the steps we broke down above and do so with precision, you should only have to reseed your lawn every eight to ten years. You can do the math in your head to see how much time, money, and effort you’ll save. It’s pretty incredible. 

 

Now, it’s time to look at bonus tips for fall seeding.

 

Optimal Seeding Timeline

At Lawn Science, we have tracked Connecticut weather and temperature patterns for over three decades and found the ideal times to seed lawns. You can seed as early as the end of August. Your window remains open for fall seeding throughout the fall season. Just be sure you get to it at least six weeks before any chance of the ground being frozen, as that closes your window.

 

See reference points on that timeline below:

 

• The first frost typically occurs in October (October 9 to October 24), depending on the region within Connecticut.
• One area showed the earliest frost in the past 23 years came on September 2, 2018.
• Temperatures consistently drop below freezing in December, and the ground starts to freeze (can be affected by snow cover and other factors).

 

Additional Tips for Fall Seeding Preparation

We highly recommend aerating your lawn just before seeding. Aeration loosens the ground, improving the soil structure and allowing better seed penetration. Think of aeration as “targeted cultivation” that helps the grass seeds get gently tucked into ideal spots for healthy growth.

 

While you’ve likely heard of aeration, did you know that there’s a better method? Liquid organic aeration is what Lawn Science has used for several years and nearly 70% of our customers now enjoy the benefits it provides (it comes with our most popular lawn care package).

 

Liquid aeration covers 100% of your lawn, which is impossible with core aeration. Plus, our organic liquid aerates 10-12 inches deep (up to 4x the depth of core aeration).

 

With our lighter Northeast soil, liquid aeration is ideal and doesn’t leave “core dirt plugs” on your lawn.

 

More tips to get the best seeding results:

 

• Choose the best type and highest quality seed 
• Remove leaves, debris, thatch, etc., from lawn surface
• Use a starter fertilizer (based on soil test)
• Maintain soil pH between 6.0 and 7.0 for optimal grass growth
• Water new seeds 15 minutes per day every day for about two weeks
• Lack of water is the cause of 99% of new lawn failures
• Seedlings should be visible in roughly three weeks

 

Conclusion

If you’ve been let down in the past with seeding efforts, your worries end here. 

 

Simply follow the scientifically proven steps above, and we promise you’ll get the lush lawn you deserve.

 

The cherry on top? Not having to worry about seeding your lawn again for another eight years — at least! 

Please don’t keep this information a secret. Pass it along to your neighbors, friends, and family. And contact American Landscape & Lawn Science if you want us to professionally handle the fall seeding preparation for you.