How to Overseed Your Lawn

Why Should I Overseed my Lawn?

The key to a healthy lawn is good strong plants! Overseeding your lawn is one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways to get a thick and healthy lawn, which is also one of the best ways to defend against pests, drought and weeds! Overseeding helps to fill in bare spots, and thickens your grass which does a few things to help you on your way to lawn greatness; it reduces access to the soil so weed seeds can’t make contact and germinate, it shades the soil below reducing sunshine available for the weeds and it slows down moisture evaporation from the soil.

When Should I Overseed my Lawn?

Overseeding can be done in the spring and/or in the fall. Fall is a prime time for overseeding because the soil temps are warm thanks to summer and that means germination can happen a little faster. After the heat of the summer, weed growth is also slightly lower so any seed you spread won’t have as much competition for resources like nutrients, water and sunshine. 

Springtime is the next best time to scatter that grass seed! Just make sure soil temps are closer to 10°C or you will get slow germination or none at all (which is really a waste of your money and good seed!). It also allows time for the new growth to become established before the heat of the summer arrives along with lower rainfall.

Which Grass Seed Should I use?

Here at Heeman’s we’ve got some great seed that has been selected specifically for different types of yards and different homeowner wants/needs. All of our grass seed options are mixtures that have been hand-selected for beauty, durability, shady locations or drought tolerance. Seeding with mixtures instead of a single variety will increase the chance of success, with each variety having different strengths to compensate should one variety struggle to thrive in your lawn.

Let’s Grow Together

What Type of Grass is Best?

Watch as Will breaks down the different blends, talks about the benefits of each and which one is the best one for you! We promise you'll feel a lot smarter and less intimated when considering your grass seed options! 🤓

Heeman’s Grass Seed Mixes:

Overseeding Mixture

• 50% Certified Perennial Ryegrass, 50% Certified Self-Repairing Ryegrass.
• Achieve a golf course quality lawn by overseeding annually – a natural solution to thicken your lawn and fight weeds!

Sun & Shade Mixture

• 25% Certified Kentucky Bluegrass, 45% Certified Chewings Fescue, 30% Certified Self-Repairing Perennial Ryegrass.
• A high-end, all certified seed mixture designed for sun or moderate shade for a professional quality lawn.

Water Saver Mixture

• 30% Certified Tall Fescue, 30% Certified Self-Repairing Tall Fescue, 20% Certified Chewings Fescue, 20% Certified Self-Repairing Perennial Ryegrass.
• Great for all soil conditions. Works well in dry, sandy and troubled soils. Excellent drought tolerance. Also designed for high traffic areas.

Super Grow Mixture

• 30% Kentucky Bluegrass, 40% Creeping Red Fescue, 30% Certified Self-Repairing Perennial Ryegrass.
• A quick emerging, multi-purpose mixture ideal for home lawns and professional landscape. For sunny areas and/or moderate shade.

What Supplies Do I Need to Overseed?

Overseeding your lawn can be as simple as spreading some grass seed by hand in the areas that are looking a little thin, but for the greatest success you will need:

• Lawn mower
• Rake
• Spreader
• Lawn fertilizer
• Lawn Soil
• Grass Seed

How to Overseed a Lawn

Here are a few steps for the greatest chance of success when overseeding in the spring or fall.

Step One: Cut your lawn and bag the clippings

Cutting your lawn a bit shorter than normal (around 2” high) and bagging the clippings if you can, or cutting the lawn twice to ensure the clippings are smaller, will help to ensure grass seed and soil get contact with the earth below.

Step Two: Rake the lawn

This will help to remove any dead grass and loosen that top layer of soil a bit more, giving new grass roots an easier time to take hold.

Step Three: Add some soil

This step is somewhat optional, but it does improve the germination rate of standard grass seed by improving soil retention. Spread a layer no more than a quarter-inch thick so you don’t smother your existing grass. Choose something like PROMIX Lawn Mix that is a great choice for top dressing because it offers some benefits such as higher moisture retention to increase the odds of germination!

Step Four: Apply your grass seed

After choosing the best variety of seed for your lawn, fill up your spreader (making sure to adjust the settings according to directions on the labels) and spread evenly across your lawn.

Step Five: Fertilize your lawn

Grass can be a heavy feeder, and it needs a good supply of nutrients! For fast growth make sure you feed your lawn with a quality lawn fertilizer such as Scotts® Turf Builder® Lawn Food (they have both spring and fall formulations) a couple days before or after overseeding (it’s not recommended that you do them at the same time). You can fertilize up to every 8 weeks (typically early spring, mid-May, July and September).

It’s not really a fertilizer, but if you’re looking to apply your spring or fall nematodes you can water them and your new grass seed in at the same time safely. 

Step Six: Water your lawn consistently

That seed will need moisture to germinate. Once you are done seeding and feeding, be sure to keep the soil consistently moist by lightly watering once or twice a day until the seedlings have reached the height of the rest of your lawn.

Enjoy Your Lawn!

Keep your lawn looking it’s best with hand pulling weeds from the root when possible and mowing your lawn high and regularly (this promotes long roots, and keeps the roots shaded as noted above). When it comes to watering, the average lawn requires about 1” of water a week, and we recommend watering less frequently but making sure it’s a good deep watering when you do it. If you have a grass seed mixture that contains soft, wide varieties of grass like Kentucky Blue, you’ll need more water than say a mix with fescue, like what’s in our Water Saver mix. 

With a little bit of effort, you can have one of the best lawns on block, we’re sure of it!