how to seed a lawn from scratch we're going to be talking about step by step process on
how to seed a new lawn or over seed an existing lawn from scratch and all the
products you'll need including how to work out how much seeds you'll need to put down
what the right weather conditions are to look out for and when to cut it after your first mow
this video is a follow-on from my lawn renovation challenge series if you haven't yet followed the
first couple of videos from that series I've linked the playlist in the card from above
but the idea behind this series is that you can follow along each step of the renovation process
and apply it to your lawn at home and all the products I'm using are linked in the description
below if you want to check out any prices or cost up a renovation project at this step we're going
to start thinking about ordering our raw materials working out what the process we're going to follow
to apply those raw materials such as seed and top dressing and calculating exactly how much we're
going to need before we order any products we're gonna need to work out how many square meters our
area is that needs to be covered you can do this by simply measuring the area times the
length by the width in my case for the front lawn it's going to be four point six by eight
point eight meters which gives approximately forty square meters this is important because
a lot of products that you apply will all reference their application rates in grams
per square meterage so we need to know this to work out how much product to buy and how much
product to apply onto the lawn the product I'm using tells me to apply an a rate of between 20
and 35 grams per square meter so if I work this out that's going to be 40 meters squared times
by 35 grams per meter which gives 1440 grams that's roughly one and a half kilos of seed
we're also playing a pre seed fertiliser at same rate which is one point four grams of fertiliser
so the first thing about sowing seed is we should avoid sowing seed if there's a likelihood of frost
or drought also to avoid seed in periods of blue-sky weather unless a sprinkler system can
be used because the soil needs to be constantly moist during the germination period that's why a
lot of recommendations is to seed during spring and the autumn because the weather generally is
more favourable for seeding during those points it is possible to seed outside of those areas but
the grass isn't generally growing at its most vigorous rate and also it will need additional
care in terms of keeping the seed and the ground moist especially in the summer period when the
conditions are right it's then time to prepare the ground the soil should not be too compact at this
stage and the top one to two inches needs to be worked into a fine tilth the area also needs to
be level and free from weeds or large stones we covered removal of weeds in the previous
episode which I've linked above if you're going to put down a pre seed fertiliser this needs to
be put around around a week before the seed and if there's been no rainfall this should
be watered in a couple of times into the area you can also use this same product as a post seed that
went over seeding and apply it two weeks after the initial germination at the same rate and water in
a really good tip to know of how much fertiliser to put down is to mark out a smaller area first
and apply the relevant quantities we're going to be covering the full application method in a
future video so please subscribe to the channel so you can be kept up to date for that once you
have an even distribution of the product it needs to be worked into the soil it's vitally important
with seed and it will greatly reduce any bird take this will also help keep the seed in contact with
the soil a really good way of doing this is by using the back of a rake and riddling into the
soil until most of the seed has disappeared the seed can take anywhere between 7 to 21 days to
germinate depending on what type of seed mix that you use in it also depends on soil temperatures
and moisture levels the really key thing about sowing seed is you need to keep it moist I would
recommend that you put a moisture plan in place such as a sprinkler system and also you can check
the weather forecasts in the future to make sure that the conditions are favourable for sowing seed
when the new grass height has reached a length of around two to three inches it's time to give it
a first cut at this point you don't want to be cutting it too short only take a small section
off the top of the grass tips to leave plenty of growth at this point cutting the grass down
to the ground could seriously damage anything that you've sowed in terms of materials you're
going to need to buy you need to obviously buy some grass seed like we've calculated at the
start of this video you're gonna need some top dressing which is usually blend say 70/30 of
sand and screened topsoil and lastly I'm also going to be using some pre seed fertiliser if
you need a bit of hand everything that I'm using is in the description below the main point of this
video was discussing the process that we're going to follow try to identify favourable
conditions and ordering all the raw materials that you're gonna need for the job subscribe
if you like this video and leave me a comment down below a lot of people have been posting
videos and pictures of their lawn renovation projects on my twitter and my facebook page
so if you're attempting a project like this please send me some pictures to show me how you
get along and lastly subscribe to the channel the next video in the playlist is going to be
something that you can do while you're waiting for the delivery of all the materials so I look
forward to seeing you there in the meantime here's some other videos that you might like