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Lincolnshire, United Kingdom Gb

Damn Rain!
Ok I am new to all this green fingered malarkey and am hoping to find plenty of advice on my learning curve having recently moved to a house with a reasonable garden. It was overgrown after 17 years of neglect so I have just cleared the lot and am starting a fresh, firstly with a new lawn. Anyway a week last wednesday I prepared and seeded the ground with a good quality seed and now following the torrential showers all my seed seems to have collected around the edges and in little groups across the whole garden, my question is what do I do now...do I leave it and wait to see what happens and then take remedial action...if so what action?...or do I rake and re-seed now?
Hopefully you will be able to help me.
Karl.




Answers

 

Rake and reseed now, try to get off some of the seed where it's collected in lumps. This happened to me once, seeded a whole slope and we had a storm overnight - all the seed was in a ridge at the bottom of the slope by morning.

24 Apr, 2012

 

Thats nearly two weeks ago!

Its a difficult one to answer simply because some seed may have germinated, and others won't have, and to start moving them around is risky!

Moving the non germinated ones would be OK but in the process you are likely to uproot the germinated ones, so defeating the object.

I don't know how wide spread this is?

But as a suggestion; after a dry spell, you could lightly dust / sweep the heaps to remove the top ( hopefully dried) seed back to where they were washed from, hopefully without moving any germinated seed.

Trouble is; I have seen the latest forecast and apparently the April showers are with us for at least another week, so getting a dry spell sort of counts my suggestion out.

The decision is yours in the end, but either way I think you are going to have some bald patches which will need repairing / re-sowing.

So it is one of those quandries;....you are damned if you do and you are damned if don't.

As I said the decision lies with you....sorry I couldn't come up with a sure fire answer....Tg

24 Apr, 2012

 

hmmm pretty much as I thought, I cant walk on it at the moment as it is still too wet and will just make a mess,standing water after heavy downpour remains for a few hours :(.
The seed was rolled in so I am hoping that a lot is still under the soil, but with the force of the rain I somehow doubt it.
Thank you for the replies, I think it is a case of suck it and see and then treat the bald patches when they appear (or dont).

The conditions were perfect for the first week, then the heavens opened.

If I mixed some seed with topsoil and sand and kept damp in greenhouse on some trays, and wait just before they start to germinate, would that be better to fill in the bare patches as the seed would at least have a bit of a head start?...just a thought.

24 Apr, 2012

 

I'm concerned that you say there's standing water after a few hours when there's been heavy rain. That shouldn't be the case if the ground is free draining - what did you do to prepare the area before sowing seed?

24 Apr, 2012

 

I tilled the soil and then seeded and then rolled it, the trouble is the soil is a sandy clay the roller has kind of sealed it, it does perculate away but only after a while, but I am talking about torrential rain here....It was lawn before so I also stripped the existing sod/moss with a turfer.

24 Apr, 2012

 

Sounds like its formed a pan on the surface - I wouldn't have used a roller, I have to say, best to have dug it all, walked all over it with your heels to compress and find any soft spots, re rake, level, walk over it again, re rake, level, and then sow the seed, which you can cover very lightly (if you like, but not essential) with a mixture of multi purpose compost and sand. Then leave it to grow. Rolling it may have created a 'pan' on the surface which means water simply runs over the top before some of it gradually penetrates. Even so, standing water for some hours may indicate much worse drainage problems than a simple panning of the topsoil.

24 Apr, 2012

 

Quote; If I mixed some seed with topsoil and sand and kept damp in greenhouse on some trays, and wait just before they start to germinate, would that be better to fill in the bare patches as the seed would at least have a bit of a head start?...just a thought.

In my opinion No!

Be patient see what happens in a few weeks time.

You might find that then you can mix the seed with some fine (seived) compost then spread it lightly over the bald areas, and these areas will germinate and you won't see the join.

What it should also do is fill in the indentations (hollows) that formed with the ponding water.

24 Apr, 2012

 

Thank you guys ..all recommendations have been taken in...think I will see what happens for a start and then take it from there, if drainage is an issue I will combat that once I can walk on it again, it never was a problem prior to stripping it off, as there are trees dotted around and they seem to take up the moisture .

24 Apr, 2012

 

Oh and there are 400 m2 so digging wasnt really an option...well not for me anyway..haha!

24 Apr, 2012

 

Well, a tiller will have done that for you, nowt wrong with that provided you dug out any perennial, deeprooted weeds first.

24 Apr, 2012

 

the seeds will of started germinating . grass seed is cheap so id agree with teegee and reseed in a couple of weeks .

24 Apr, 2012

 

later on you can go round with a pitchfork and push wholes into the grass everywear . takes a while but youl have to weight . a great garden never gets finished and youve just started and youve found a great site welcome .

24 Apr, 2012

 

Okay well the seed is germinating finally and it seems that where the water was standing that is where the best germination is happening, the bare patches seem to be on the higher areas, when I mean high i am only talking less than 1cm, so it looks like i will just have to reseed those patches, the grass is about 1inch high at the moment so I am thinking of waiting another couple of weeks to see if any more germinate, then take the top off with a mower and reseed then...does that seem the right way to go?

11 May, 2012

 

First, you shouldn't cut newly grown lawns from seed with a mower, although in my experience, you can get away with a hover mower. In theory, the first 2 or 3 cuts should be with shears, because there's a high risk of tearing out the new grass by the roots with a mower.
Second, I wouldn't wait any longer, I'd seed the bare patches now - because they're slightly higher, the seed's probably washed into the lower dips and hollows, which is why the slightly higher bits are still bare.

11 May, 2012

How do I say thanks?

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