For step-by-step instructions on how to seed or overseed your fescue, please see our How to Seed Fescue page.
All cool season grass should be overseeded each fall to keep it thick and lush. Unlike warm season grass, fescue, rye and bluegrass don’t spread. Seeding it each fall will insure that your shade grass stays thick and lush.
Many areas that we service are in a transitional zone, which means that it’s really too hot for the shade grass. It will look nice in the spring, but when the heat of summer hits it, some of it will die back, which makes fall overseeding that much more important.
If a cool season lawn is not overseeded in the fall, the result will be a thinning turf that is susceptible to invasion by weeds.
Fall is the correct time to seed fescue, rye and bluegrass, because that’s the beginning of its growing season. If you seed in the spring, the grass doesn’t have enough time to get a good root system down before the heat of the summer, and you will lose a lot of it. Also, if you seed in the spring, you will be unable to apply pre-emergents to those areas and may have a weed problem.
If you MUST seed in the spring (didn’t have time in the fall, or have some bare areas you can’t live with,) please let us know so that we may treat it appropriately.
If you have a warm season grass lawn and start to notice thinning or bare areas under trees, your lawn probably has increasing shade due to the trees getting bigger, so you’ll need to either seed cool season grass under the trees, or try something else.
Alternatives to shade grass – many people don’t want to have to reseed every fall, but their shade areas are getting larger. What else can you do?
You might consider putting in some shady ground cover, like vinca, ivy, or ajuga that spreads and requires little maintenance.
You could also trim back your trees to let the grass get more sunlight. But this is usually a temporary fix, since your trees will continue growing.
See our page on Shade Solutions for more ideas.
Please don’t overseed your full-sun warm season lawn with cool season grass. From time to time, you may see an article on “having a green lawn year round,” by overseeding your Bermuda with fescue, so that when the Bermuda is dormant, the fescue will be green. Sounds like a good plan! But unless you are committed to extreme maintenance year-round, it will probably turn out badly, with clumps of fescue in your Bermuda lawn that look terrible. And it will be very difficult to get them out.
We don’t recommend seeding warm season grasses in our area, because the grass just doesn’t have enough time to mature before winter and its freezing temperatures. Sodding or sprigging are the best ways to establish Bermuda, zoysia, St. Augustine and centipedegrass.