The Differences Between Overseeding and Slit Seeding
Are you seeing bare patches on your lawn? Is your grass not as dense as it once was? These common problems may be caused by a variety of factors, including dense or dry soil, insect damage, or too much shade. The solution may lie in seeding your lawn. Overseeding and slit seeding are the two most common methods, and both are effective in not only restoring uniform lushness to your lawn, but improving its overall health and resistance to insects.
What is Overseeding?
Overseeding involves the dispersal of grass seed over an established lawn without turning the soil. Rather than a targeted seeding to fill in bare spots overseeding is done on the whole lawn. Overseeding promotes new grass growth among the existing turf and is a great way to introduce new types of grass that complement the existing variety to fill out and strengthen your lawn. A lawn care expert is your best resource in determining what type of grass should be used in overseeding, and the timing of the overseeding process.
When Should I Overseed My Lawn?
Depending on your location, overseeding should be done either in the fall or spring. In cooler regions, late summer and fall are the best times to overseed. In warmer regions, early spring is the optimum time to overseed.
What is Slit Seeding?
Where overseeding spreads grass seed over existing turf, slit seeding plants grass seed into thin furrows sliced into your lawn. While more expensive than overseeding, the advantage of slit seeding is a more reliable germination rate since grass seeds inserted directly into the soil are less likely to wash away or be eaten by birds. It’s less expensive than resodding bare patches on your lawn, and is overall the most effective way to repair damage to your turf. Like overseeding, slit seeding can also be used to introduce new varieties of grass to your lawn.
What Time of Year Should I Do Slit Seeding?
The timing of slit seeding is the same as the timing for overseeding - early spring for warm regions, and late summer or fall for cooler regions.
Preparing Your Lawn For Seeding
It’s important that your lawn is healthy before beginning either overseeding or slit seeding. If weeds or grubs are the cause of your thinning or patchy grass, these problems should be remedied before you seed your lawn. A Suffolk, VA, lawn care expert can assess and identify what’s at the heart of your lawn’s failure to thrive.
Once your lawn is healthy enough for reseeding, the next step is to get up any sticks, rocks, leaves, or thatch - patches of thick, dead turf - that could compromise the effectiveness of either process.
Cut your grass the day before your grass is to be seeded and rake up any clippings. If your lawn is to be slit seeded, it is beneficial to give your lawn a thorough watering since it’s easier for the blades of the slit seeder to penetrate the ground that’s not dry and packed.
Sign Up for Expert Slit Seeding
While both overseeding and slit seeding can be effective ways of improving your lawn, slit seeding yields more effective results. If you want those results to be guaranteed and professionally delivered, consider Agronomics Lawn Management to do the job. We use quality, top-of-the-line products in our slit seeding process and offer free reseeding if you aren’t 100% satisfied.