Is your lawn worn out, patchy, or thin? Then, you should overseed your lawn to make it healthy and lush again. Your lawn’s age, grass type, and the time of year are also deciding factors.
What is overseeding?
In short, overseeding is the process of planting grass seed on top of an existing lawn. It’s done for a variety of reasons, mainly patching up lawns that have seen better days.
If you’d like to learn about this lawn maintenance practice, read our guide on overseeding.
Does my lawn need overseeding?
When considering if you should overseed your lawn, ask yourself these questions:
- Does my lawn have brown or bare patches?
- Is my grass thinning out?
- Are weeds taking over my lawn?
- What time of year is it?
- Can I overseed with the type of grass I’m growing?
- How old is my lawn?
- When did I last overseed?
- What’s the weather like?
Brown or bare patches in your lawn
The easiest way to fix brown and bare patches in your lawn is by overseeding. In fact, patchy grass is probably the most common reason why homeowners overseed their lawns. A patchy lawn is not a healthy one; it’s less capable of fighting against pests and diseases.
You’ll need to fix existing lawn issues before overseeding your lawn. Your grass may be patchy because of the following reasons:
- Soil compaction
- Excess thatch
- Poor mowing
- Lawn pests
- Fungal diseases
- Excess foot traffic
Our guide on how to fix patchy grass covers other reasons why your lawn is patchy.
Thinning grass
If you see soil peeking out through your whole lawn as opposed to clusters of grass looking brown or dying out, then you have a thinning lawn. A thinning lawn can be caused by many things, a lot of which also cause a patchy lawn.
If your lawn is thinning, overseeding can make it lush and thick again. However, you will need to fix the underlying issues that caused your lawn to thin out in the first place.
Lots of weeds
If you see more weeds popping up on your lawn more often, then you should probably overseed your lawn. Weeds sprout in bare patches and weak turf as there is no strong grass to outcompete them. These weeds are an eyesore, especially if they’re grassy weeds that stick out like a sore thumb against your turf.
Overseeding your lawn can help bolster your lawn’s defenses and allow it to fight against weeds. You can even use a more resistant grass cultivar to make your lawn even stronger and able to fight against weeds effectively.
Time of year
The best time to overseed your lawn is during the active growing season of the grass you want to plant. If it’s not time yet, then you probably shouldn’t overseed your lawn. It’s not that it’s impossible to get the grass to grow; it’s just much more difficult and requires more water and time.
For cool-season grasses, overseed during late summer or early fall. Warm-season grasses should be overseeded from late spring to early summer.
However, there are exceptions to this:
- You can overseed cool-season grass in late fall and early winter if your area gets heavy snowfall – the type that blankets your whole lawn. This is called dormant seeding.
- If you have warm-season grass but want a green lawn all year round, then you can overseed annual ryegrass in early fall. It will keep your lawn green throughout the fall and winter and then die when your warm-season grass wakes up from dormancy.
Grass type
Many warm-season grasses have rhizomes (underground stems) and stolons (above-ground stems) that help them spread and take over bare patches. These grasses are less likely to need overseeding as they can patch themselves up well; this is especially true for Bermudagrass. However, you may need to overseed if your warm-season lawn is very damaged.
Note: St. Augustinegrass can’t be grown from seed. If your St. Augustinegrass lawn is patchy, you will need to patch it up by installing sod or grass plugs.
In contrast, many cool-season grasses don’t have the same restorative abilities; in the case of Kentucky bluegrass, it’s just not able to patch itself up as fast. So, you should overseed your lawn if you have a damaged cool-season lawn.
Lawn age
Is your lawn on the older side? Is it also plagued with diseases, weeds, and pests? You may want to overseed it with a newer variety of grass that is more resistant. New cultivars of grass are constantly being worked on by turfgrass scientists, with the aim of making hardier grasses for both commercial and residential lawns.
Older lawns may also need a little refreshing with new grass, which overseeding can help with.
Date of last overseeding
If you haven’t overseeded your lawn in a few years, you should consider overseeding it especially if it’s looking a little dull or thin. If you’ve already overseeded your lawn this year, then you may not need to again.
How often should you overseed? How often you should overseed depends on your grass and your goals. If your lawn looks fine, you shouldn’t need to overseed more than once a year (or even once every few years). Homeowners who overseed often are doing it to have perfect grass or use their lawns a lot (so their lawns are worn out by foot traffic).
Weather conditions
If you are expecting extreme weather in the coming days, you should postpone overseeding your lawn. Heavy rain and runoff can wash away your grass seeds, which will cause your overseeding project to fail.
You should also wait to overseed your lawn if it’s windy outside. The wind can blow around the seeds as you’re spreading them.
Pick a clear, windless day to overseed. A light rain will benefit your grass seeds, so it’s ok to overseed if that is expected for the next few days.
FAQs about overseeding
What are the benefits of overseeding?
The benefits of overseeding include:
- Better curb appeal
- Stronger and healthier turf
- More tolerant and resistant grasses
- Less erosion
When should I renovate my lawn instead of overseeding?
According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, you should consider a full lawn renovation if over 50% of your lawn has been taken over by weeds. Killing all of the weeds off can leave patches where other weeds can grow in before your grass seed has a chance to establish.
A full renovation also gives you the chance to grow more resistant and tolerant grasses to repel weeds, diseases, pests, and more.
How do you overseed?
Here are the basic steps, but you can read more about it in our guide on how to overseed your lawn:
- Prepare your lawn by dethatching, aerating, and amending your soil.
- Mow low and rake debris.
- Spread seed evenly.
- Fertilize your lawn.
- Water the seeds.
The exact process may change if you decide to go with slice seeding over traditional overseeding.
Connect with a pro to overseed your lawn
Overseeding is necessary to maintain a lawn that looks good and stands up to diseases, weeds, pests, and other stressors. If you can’t overseed your lawn, consider hiring a lawn care pro to take care of it for you.
Lawn Love can connect you with local pros who can overseed your lawn with just a few clicks. They can even mow your lawn for you once the new grass is tall enough. Hire a lawn care pro through Lawn Love today.
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