whenever you seed any lawn from scratch or even if your overseeding an existing area you're going to
start to see some really good results however you'll also probably see some bald spots like
this and this in this video we're going to talk about the causes of why the bald spots happen in
the first place and what you can do to fix them the regular viewers of the channel you already
know that this video is part of our four-week lawn care renovation challenge and in the picture you
can see an update from the last video where we did our first mow on a newly seeded lawn
in this video we're going to be tackling some of the areas that didn't respond that well to
the over seeding process that you can see in the bottom right we're going to take a look at
the common causes of why seed may not germinate in the lawn and finally I'm going to take you
through the step-by-step process of how to repair these patches and get a thicker greener lawn if
you haven't seen the previous parts of the 4-week renovation challenge i'm gonna link a card to the
playlist above and feel free to check that out and also make sure you subscribe to the channel
and turn the notifications on to take your DIY lawn care to the next level one of the first
causes that may be contributing to why your seed doesn't germinate in the lawn is birds birds are
a really common cause of loss of seed after the over seeding process and as such will contribute
to some of the bare patches that you seed later down the line there's a couple of things you can
do to deter birds from taking seeds from the lawn and one of those things is actually covering the
seeds with a layer of the top dressing or compost after you've laid them down putting this layer of
top dressing or compost over the top of your seeds will drastically reduce the bird take
that you see almost acting like a little barrier there are some other methods you can use such as
putting as physical barrier like netting or a germination sheet in between the seeds and the
birds which will also be effective the next cause of lack of germination is over watering in my case
I think this is what contributed to a lot of the gaps that I can see there was a real week or two
weeks of heavy heavy rain and this can do two things one it can actually wash the seed away
from this soil and secondly too much water will stunt the germination ratios of the seeds the
third thing is under water in it's really really important that the seeds are kept moist throughout
the germination period this could mean watering or applying water a couple of times a day until
you start to see the seeds establish themselves it's really important to keep them moist because
the seeds are quite sensitive at this point and they need that level of moisture to trigger the
germination process the next factor that can influence things is the amount of foot traffic
that your lawn sees whilst in principle it's probably okay to have very light foot traffic
over a seeded area keep any heavier activities to a minimum to increase the chances of germination
the last factor that I want to touch on is over fertilisation it's really easy to get enthusiastic
about seeding and developing a new lawn but actually the new lawn seed doesn't need high
concentrate fertiliser during its early stages stick to the light pre-seed type of fertiliser
I've linked the product that I personally use in the description below so take a look at that if
you're interested and also make sure not to over apply the fertiliser during the initial stages
taking a look around the lawn we can see some patches around the edge that need to
over seed in I'm just going to run these patches by hand for now which will be fine
and there was also a little bit around the grid in the middle of the lawn and I think
what was happening here is as the impact sprinkler was hitting the grid it was kind
of washing the seeds off the hard surface and just pushing them away in some of the corners
during the process I actually thought I'd saw a
leather jacket in my new seed but after further inspection it was only a slug
I'd saved a bit top dress and mix from our top dressing video which I've linked in the
card above because from my experience there's always some little spots I need to touch up and
I thought it would be handy to have some left over depending on how accurate you want to be
with reapplying your seed you can either use a spreader setting you can use a manual type
spreader or you can just spread by hand in this case I chose to overseed most of my areas just
by spreading by hand it's quite a small area and this was feasible for me given the size of
my area if you were overseeding a bigger patch or may be needed to overseed the complete lawn
I'd recommend checking out a spreader the one that I use is a Scot spreader which I've linked
in the description below but when you cover in a bigger area it's much more easier to put the seeds
down more evenly and control the under or over application of a product as for the top dressing
I'm just giving it a light sprinkle you can also use compost or I've seen people using peat moss
for this the reason for that is it just helps to keep the germination in and keeps the seeds moist
during the process what i'd specifically save some of this topdressing mixture ready for this
process ideally you want the mixture to be dry so it doesn't clump together and I'm just spreading
it out using a fanning motion with my hands and the reason I'm doing this is to keep it covered
away from the birds and just give it an extra almost blanket during the germination process
just gonna have to stop the video here for quick ice cream and I'll be back with you
guys in just a minute one of the things I forgot to mention was after applying the seeds by hand
I just lightly brushed them into the grass you can use a brush for this or use the back of a
rake just to drag it across the surface after applying the top dressing I chose to roll the
seeds in using this roller I've actually linked one of these in the description
below but I understand a lot of people won't have one of these so you can just lightly firm
the seeds into the soil using your feet or your hands the objective here isn't really
to crush they'll compact the seeds into the soil and this roller that I'm using has all
the water drained out of it so it's much more lighter than it would be if it was full the
purpose is just to firm the soil down a little bit and create that good seed to soil contact
the other thing about having one of these is you can actually get some
pretty cool stripes I mean look at those stripes
don't forget to subscribe to my channel to take your DIY lawn care to the next level
if you found any of my content useful and you'd like to support the channel I do get
a small amount of commission if you buy any products from Amazon using my links in the
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some small garden bits to help me support the stream in the meantime check out some of my
other videos that you might find useful and as the lawn care Pro say I'll see you on the lawn