In this video i'm going to be talking about how to overseed by hand this small lawn and we're also
going to be doing it with absolutely minimal tools just to show you that you can get good
results on small areas without all the high-tech equipment this video is sponsored by skillshare
i'll give you a little bit more on what skillshare is coming up in the later part of the video
but for now let's get stuck into the video so this is a lawn that i recently just
scarified and i'll leave a link to that video in the card above if you wanted to check that out
and after scarification is an ideal time to overseed the lawn you can see the scarification
has ripped up any of the thatch that was still there and it's opened up the soil bed where it
was particularly thin this is really important that when you put seed down you get a great seed
to soil contact this is going to help the grass plant grow because if you think about it the
seed wants to be in the ground in order for it to grow so it needs to be in contact with the soil
the first step is going to be how much seed that you need to cover the whole area now generally
most manufacturers recommend somewhere between 35 and maybe up to 70 grams per square meter
with the higher rates that's typically for when you're seeding a lawn completely from scratch
so a more typical overseeding rate is something around 35 grams per square meter of lawn
i know that this lawn is 35 square meters so here's how we're going to work out how
much seed we're going to use that's 35 meters squared times by 35 grams gives us
1.25 kg roughly so i know that i'm going to need roughly 1.25 kilograms of seed in order to fully
cover this area so now we've calculated how much seed we're going to need we're going to weigh that
out and i'm going to show you how to evenly spread it on your lawn using nothing more than your hands
in terms of tools for this job i've literally just got a bag of seed and this is a full rye grass mix
and if you're interested in seeds i've left a link for some seeds in my description section
below and i've got some builders line or string just got some kitchen scales
which i'll lay out on the flat surface i'm going to zero the scales and i can put the bag into this
just to see so in here we've got one point nine three eight grams which is just under two kilos
so i've got more than enough seed that i need to complete this job and in fact a little bit more
one of the things i also like to do is to save a little bit of seed back don't put
the whole bag down so what i'm probably going to do with this mix is put my 1.2 kilos down
save the 500 grams that i've got left and what that allows you to do is a little trick that
because it's a natural product sometimes it's very dependent on the weather and also other
factors as well like for example the birds and other wildlife and rain wash off etcetera
so i like to keep a little bit back and then what i can do is after a week or two
i can keep my eyes out and maybe go over and overseed some of the patches that i didn't take
generally when you're buying good quality grass seed you should expect high percentages
of germination but there's always a chance of the weather and nature doing its course that you can
just save a little bit back just so that you've got that backup option to complete your project
if you really need to so i've got my bag of seed which i know that i've got enough and actually
a little bit too much and i've actually brought some builders line with me now you don't need this
tool to complete the job you can just sprinkle it by eye but if it's the first time doing it
sometimes it can be helpful to sort of mark out a little bit of a grid across the garden and divide
the seed up into those patches so you don't over apply it and run out and what i mean by this is
if we know that we need 1.2 kilos for a section like this i could run a line down the middle of
the garden and split my seed up into two 600 gram batches i can put 600 grams down on the first half
and then a second batch of 600 grams on the second half and it allows you to get a little bit more
control of how you're applying the seed as you get used to doing this you'll get a feel for how much
needs to go down and if you're always in doubt and one safe way is just put a little bit down and you
can repeat the passes in multiple directions till you've used up what you needed to use
so i can see here i've just run the line from one side of the garden to the other which is roughly
halfway and that means i can split my batches from the seed into two 600 gram sections and
i'll be ready to go i'll put it a little bit over to the left because there's some cut up sections
there and there but we're going to be fine and let's get focused on putting the seed down
in terms of broadcasting the seed i'm literally just going to take
a handful of the seed mix and almost throw it down onto the floor in a sprinkling motion like this
so one of the things i forgot to mention was you don't have to just split your lawn in half
if you really want to get an exact number you can really calculate this out i've been used to doing
this on a number of occasions so it's a bit of a second nature to me but if you really want to be
exact you can get your exact number of grams and you can split this up into a grid pattern so you
can put some string going this way and make them up into little squares and it's really up to you
how much you divide your lawn into small sections to get the exact number of seeds that you need in
each little square so if you wanted to put it into quarters you could do that again put a line across
the middle that way and then put the seed down in 300 grams in each of the different sections
skillshare is an online learning platform and there's hundreds of different classes on there
last month i watched a course on video editing and this month i watched a course from aaron
draplin about logo design because i'm looking to create a new logo for my business you can find
all the information you need on a specific topic in one place from the same person with no adverts
membership cost as little as ten dollars a month i've teamed up with skillshare to bring the first
thousand viewers of my channel a link for a free premium membership trial which they can
access by clicking the link below okay so now the c is down i'm quite happy with the coverage
the last part is really important and often overlooked by a lot of people which is going to be
around treading or rolling the seed down into the canopy just help me i'm going to use a standard
garden rake and and what i'm going to do is run this on its back like this across the surface
of the lawn just to agitate those blades of grass and let that seed drop down onto the soil you can
use a roller if you've got a lawn roller you can use the back of a lawn mower with a roller on if
you've got that and if you don't you can just walk up and down the area and press that seed into the
soil surface it's really important to have seed soil contact the last tip that i've got for you is
around the weather it's really important to keep new seeds moist during its germination if you can
time it so there's some rain coming or keep on top of your water in a couple of times a day just to
keep that seed moist during its germination period so let's get on and i'll show you what i do with
this
so
you can also cover the lawn with a bit of top dressing or um soil just to help that seed soil
contact and that's going to help keep the seeds moist during the germination period i'm paying
particular attention to any little ball patches that i've got and you can see that seed is nicely
in contact with the soil and dropping into any of those patches that i just want to get seeded up in
the next video i'm going to be covering the seeds with this really fine and light soil top dressing
if you're interested in how i top dress the lawn and how you can do that with a range of different
tools then please subscribe to my video and i'll leave a link in the card at the end of this video