Quote:
Originally Posted by CLABRO
The grass is quite green. It's Bermuda. And to be honest, I had never done a 'pull test' before so I'm not exactly sure what is normal and abnormal. Not all of the grass will pull out and it won't leave a bare spot or anything like that. But if I picked 5 random spots for the test, I'd say 3 out of the 5 spots I'd pull out just some grass (maybe 25-30% will come out from what I pulled). However, I'm not pulling very hard at all. I'm going to do a catch cup test to see how my sprinklers are performing and if they need to be adjusted. I feel like sometimes the water in certain areas from the sprinkler just stands on top of the soil so that could be the issue in this specific areas where the grass is slightly thinner than the rest of the yard. The root system could be going back up towards the top of the soil (where the stagnate water is) instead of penetrating down deep and then would be harder to pull out during a pull test? Maybe I need to aerate the yard too.
Granted, I've never seeded my lawn or overseeeded (whichever is the correct term) and that was my first thought as to why it's a little thin in areas. Should you be seeding your lawn every year? For perspective, we bought the house about 5 years ago (new house and new sod) and haven't ever seeded it. Maybe the reason for some thinness in certain areas is because I've never seeded in 5-6 years and just expected it would remain thick with the proper mowing, water, etc.
|
Pull test could be subjective. If it's not brown but green and some of it pulls up it could just be shallow roots or you're the Incredible Hulk lol! I would aerate just to let your lawn breathe. Dethatch would help too in case you've never done it for five years. Do the tuna can method for the sprinkler test. Remember 1" of water per week. I usually keep an eye on the weather to determine if I need to run my sprinklers. Usually 3 days apart or four. Like I said earlier I would look into soil amendments as next years project.
Usually with overseeding people will do that just to get the lawn to thicken up for next year before the lawn goes into winter dormancy. If your lawn is thin now I highly recommend doing it at the beginning of September. You need almost 45 days for the lawn to establish itself after germination is complete. Plus I saw that you can't really mow for about a month after seeding. So a complete dethatch, than aerate, than overseed and starter fertilizer. You have Bermuda so I believe that type of grass spreads so you might be good not to overseed. It's your call. My lawn is thick and thin so I haven't overseed for 3 years. This year I will overseed because I have Turf Type Tall Fescue so the variety I have doesn't spread as much