The calendar says it’s Septmeber 2nd, but it feels more like mid-October here in Tulsa! Now I’m not complaining, as the cool temperatures and nice rainfalls have made it very pleasant to be outside working and even playing. And while our football coaches wouldn’t mind some of the normal hot weather to help their players get into shape, the players aren’t complaining too much.
This abnormal early onset of cooler fall weather does have some affect on your turf, but it’s generally a good thing. We’ve actually started our Fescue seeding much earlier than ever with the cool weather. If you have shaded areas where Bermudagrass or Zoysiagrass will not grow, then Fescue is your best option. The cool weather of fall is the best time to seed Fescue, from now until mid-October in Tulsa. Fescue is a cool-season grass, which performs best in fall and spring. Typical Oklahoma summers can take a toll on Fesuce with heat stress and turf diseases such as Brown Patch. So, now is is good time to bring in more grass plants with overseeding Fescue.
At LawnAmerica, our seeding process usually involves double aeration of the turf to help bust up the ground and increase germination rates. There is also a long-term benifit to loosening the soil. We use a blue-tag custom blend of 4 types of Fescue–Avenger, Constitution, Spyder, and Titanium. If a homeowner does their own seeding, we recommend buying seed from us, as much of the seed that is purchased from the big box stores quite frankly is junk!
Don't let the fancy bag fool you.
Even buying a ”name brand” seed in a fancy bag doesn’t insure that you are seeding quality seed. If you look at the label, you’ll see that it’s a blend of 3 types of Fescue, and some Kentucky Bluegrass. These 3 varieties are not real good varieties according to the indendent seed trials (NTEP). Oftentimes in these blends, companies put in some of the varieties that are not selling (because they are not good) in order to get rid of them. We’ve gone away from even trying to put Kentucky Bluegrass into our blends, as it usually just does not survive our Oklahoma summers. A good Fescue is still your best bet. All 4 of our varieties show good results in the NTEP trials. By blending in different types of grass, you can get the better qualities of some varieties if one does not perform well. It’s like adding genetic diversity to your home turf.
Another important item to look for on the seed label is the percentage of weed seed and “other crop seed”. A good blue tag seed mixure will have zero on both. This bag of seed was the best I could buy at the box store, and it still has .01% weed seed and .5% “other crop seed”. That may not sound like alot to you, but even with a little 5 Lb bag of seed, that tranlates to hundreds of weeds being seeded into your turf. The “other crop seed’ is often
Read the seed label to see what's really in there!
Orchardgrass or Lovegrass, both of which are lighter green then Fescue, and are impossible to control in a Fescue turf short of pulling them out.
So be careful what you seed into the ground, as you may be seeding weeds! Better yet, just contact LawnAmerica to insure that the seeding will be done right. But if you really want to do your own seeding, contact us and we’ll sell you a bag of our professional blue tag seed.
