Fall is the ideal time revive your lawn to a fresh, lush green by seeding and fertilizing. The days are shorter, the temperature cooler and rainfall is more abundant this season, providing an ideal climate for our cool season grasses including tall fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, and fine fescue. Below we have provided our step by step guide to seeding your lawn, including seed options and fertilizers for different uses.
Selecting Your Grass Seed
There are a variety of grass seed blends to choose from. Merrifield has created several custom blends particularly to suit our region, which meet the needs of most of our clients: Merrifield Tuff Play, Merrifield Sunny and Merrifield Shady.
Merrifield Tuff Play is a mix of tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass seed that is especially heat and drought tolerant, requiring 4+ hours of sun per day. It’s designed to create an easy-care, traffic tolerant lawn.
Merrifield Sunny is a Kentucky bluegrass mix that gives a particularly luxurious, blue-green lawn, but requires more maintenance than Tuff Play. It requires at least 6 hours of sun.
Merrifield Shady is a fine fescue mix that only requires 1 to 3 hours of sun per day. It’s a great solution for lower light areas in your yard where you still want to have lawn.
Selecting Your Fertilizer
We offer 2 fertilizers for grass seed, the first, Merrifield Select, contains phosphorus to help with germination of new lawns and root building of your grass. If you are seeding your lawn, this is the ideal fertilizer to use.
Merrifield Premium does not contain phosphorus, and so is ideal for use on lawns that have not recently been seeded.
How to Seed Your Lawn
Step 1: Identify any bare areas of your lawn. Rake these areas clean, eliminating any debris to prepare it for seeding.
Step 2: Seed the area with your choice of custom seed blend. Visit our spreader settings page to learn about spreader settings of your seed spreader.
Step 3: Fertilize with Merrifield Select. Follow the instructions on the back of the bag to help you figure out how much fertilizer to use on your newly seeded areas.
Step 4: Go back to the bare spots and cover them with a thin layer of compost like LeafGro or McGills Premium Compost. This will help the seed stay in place, keep the areas moist, aid in germination and build and improve your soil.
Step 5: After about 1 month, return and fertilizer with Merrifield Premium, following the instructions on the back of the bag to determine how much to add to these seeded areas. This fertilizer will help build a healthy root system and get your lawn looking its best.
