The overseeding of an existing lawn is part of your essential yearly lawn maintenance. As all lawns are affected by their growing environment in which they exist, their level of use and general weather conditions. Therefore, understanding the basic principles of overseeding and choosing the right lawn seed, will give you the greenest and healthiest lawn.
Overseeding your lawn will
- Improve the colour of your lawn
- Reduce weeds and moss
- Helps to infill damaged and bare patches
- Infill thin or worn areas giving your lawn a thicker, denser sward
When is the best time to overseed your lawn
Overseed an existing lawn in both spring and autumn, as germination can take from 7-21 days in ideal conditions. The daily temperature needs to general be in excess of 13ºC unless you are using our Gro-Sure Smart Lawn Seed Fast Start
Choosing the right lawn seed
Its also important to choose the right lawn seed for overseeding. You should consider what the lawn is used for, whether it has high traffic, is played on allot, or has pet use. You could also think about the appearance you want to achieve. All of our grass seed is pantone matched so if you have used a product from Gro-Sure previously, you don’t need to worry about using a different product from the range.
For a more tolerant lawn we recommend choosing Gro-Sure Hardwearing Lawn Seed. This seed has a blend of strong and resilient seeds that simply thrive in tougher conditions. Its ideal for high traffic areas, and makes your lawn more tolerant to pet use.
For drier, more shady areas you’ll need a more drought tolerant seed blend. We recommend using our Gro-Sure Smart Lawn Seed Shady & Dry Areas lawn seed. It has a unique bend of ultra shade resistant and drought tolerant seed varieties. It will give you a very resilient grass that is capable of growing even under minimal sunlight.
Others
- For areas where your grass never seems to grow try our Gro-Sure Smart Lawn Seed
- If you need to germinate seeds quickly and in colder conditions try Gro-Sure Smart Lawn Seed Fast Start
- Our general lawn seed for all lawns is Gro-Sure Multi-Purpose Lawn Seed
- To achieve fast results use Gro-Sure Fast Acting Lawn Seed
- For a showstopper lawn try our Gro-Sure Fine & Luxurious Lawn Seed
How to overseed your lawn
- Mow your lawn to approx 25mm.
- Use a spring tine rake to break up and remove the layer of dead matted grass (thatch). If the depth opf the thatch is quite dense use a scaryfing rake, as this will ensure the seed make contact with the soil allowing it to germinate
- Using a garden fork or aerator to spike the lawn at 300mm intervals
- If your lawn has not been fed in the last 4 months we recommend feeding the lawn before overseeding. Your lawn can then be overseeded 3 to 4 days after applying lawn fertiliser. However, please note you will usually need to wait about 4 weeks after applying a feed, weed & moss killer. (Check the instructions on the product for this.)
- Sow the seed evenly across the lawn
- Our range of seed can be mixed with lawn seeding soil and applied to the lawn jointly. This will save a bit of time and effort working the topdressing and seed into the surface
- The seeded area must now be kept moist. Therefore, water your lawn after 2 or 3 days if no rain has fallen.
- Specific bare patches can be reseeded without treating the whole lawn. Apply the same procedure as above
- To protect specific areas from birds consider covering with netting or garden fleece. This should be removed when new shoots start to come through the soil
- Try to keep traffic on your freshly overseeded lawn to a minimum for 7 to 21 days
- Raise mowing heights to approximately 50mm for the initial 2 or 3 cuts, then reduce down to 25mm over the next 2 or 3 cuts
Further lawn care advice by season and task can be found in our lawn care hub
