Grass Repair

so we had to rip out 3 trees in the front yard because they were diseased and in rough shape. we then tried to dig out all of the old shale rocks, pine needles and random junk, lay some new lawn soil, and re-seed the areas to try to just have grass where those trees were. long story short, seeding in large areas like that is tough. grass grew in some areas, but it's patchy, and it's just not working for such a big area.

a couple options I'm thinking: split-seeding the grass seed, which i guess is a more efficient way of seeding but I know nothing about it, or just laying sod where the trees used to be. either way, the new grass whether it's seeded or using sod, will not likely match the existing grass. the lawn is 45 years old and isn't in the best shape. anyway, any advice would be great. also considering hiring someone to take care of this for us, as long as the price isn't outlandish. haven't called any landscapers yet since I wanted to get some advice first.

have someone come out with a bobcat and rip out the whole lawn then re-sod the whole thing?

Could do a really aggressive power rake on the old lawn, followed by an aeration and top-dress with some good loam and the same seed as the new area, that'll give a chance of "blending" the two looks.
Or resod the entire thing. But $$$.

I took down a spruce last year, and had 5+ inches of needles in the ground under it (about a 10 ft diameter), zero grass growing. What I did was rake down as far as I could until I got to something that resembled dirt, seeded (and raked the seeds into the first half inch of dirt), then watered consistently. The grass sprouted slowly, but once it took, I used some starter fertilizer on it and kept it watered. It grew in great.

No sod, no topsoil added, no lime.

I also overseeded the rest of the lawn, and fertilized and watered after the new grass had grown. Using the same seed to overseed, the lawn looks uniform and has much less weeds in it now. I think the key point in all of this was being consistent with watering.

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Originally Posted by G-ZUS

have someone come out with a bobcat and rip out the whole lawn then re-sod the whole thing?

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This is last resort unless it's cheaper than I thought, but I'm assuming this is like $3k -$4k at least.

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Originally Posted by Abeo

I took down a spruce last year, and had 5+ inches of needles in the ground under it (about a 10 ft diameter), zero grass growing. What I did was rake down as far as I could until I got to something that resembled dirt, seeded (and raked the seeds into the first half inch of dirt), then watered consistently. The grass sprouted slowly, but once it took, I used some starter fertilizer on it and kept it watered. It grew in great.

No sod, no topsoil added, no lime.

I also overseeded the rest of the lawn, and fertilized and watered after the new grass had grown. Using the same seed to overseed, the lawn looks uniform and has much less weeds in it now. I think the key point in all of this was being consistent with watering.

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I'm surprised that worked, because we seeded and watered like crazy but it's still patchy and I think it's because birds and squirrels were eating the seeds and stuff. I thought maybe burying the seeds slightly would be the solution to that

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Originally Posted by timdog

I'm surprised that worked, because we seeded and watered like crazy but it's still patchy and I think it's because birds and squirrels were eating the seeds and stuff. I thought maybe burying the seeds slightly would be the solution to that

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Nope. Birds and squirrells will dig right down when they know they've found a goldmine in seeds. I would test the soil in the areas that didn't grow (you can buy kits are Greengate, Golden Acres etc.), if the ph and NPK are alright, then you just have to wait until mid to end of fall and reseed again for next year. You could just try seeding it in the mean time and hope the little buggers don't keep getting them all.

What I ended up doing with my old property in a similar scenario, was we rented a sod cutter, basically shaved off the old sod, dumped it and resoded. Cheaper than a bobcat, and it worked. The lawn was beautiful up till we moved. Reseeding always grows in patchy, then you have to reseed again and repeat, and still it looked kinda like your pal Max U's weak ass looking douche moustache.

I also put some new top soil down too before resodding.