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Your grass will not develop? Heed this golf-course superintendent’s recommendation


If circumstances aren’t proper, new grass will not develop.

Getty Photographs

Welcome to “Tremendous Secrets and techniques Solves,” wherein a golf-course superintendent doles out recommendation for real-life lawn-care dilemmas. Have an issue of your individual? Drop a line to josh.sens@golf.com, and we would deal with your quandary in a future installment!

Rising grass is like taking part in golf. Typically you’ve received ask your self: What am I doing incorrect?

A GOLF.com staffer has been wrestling with this query in his personal yard.

Right here’s the gist. Early this month, he pulled up a number of concrete patio slabs behind his Minnesota dwelling and planted grass seeds of their place, hoping to broaden the inexperienced footprint of his garden. Earlier than setting down the seeds, he raked the bottom to loosen up the soil, then added a layer of high soil for good measure. He then watered the seeds twice a day for 3 days (as soon as within the morning, as soon as at night time) earlier than ramping again to watering as soon as a day. Throughout that point, temperatures had been heat however not scorching scorching, with in the future of heavy rain. The yard will get loads of daylight within the afternoon.

Our hopeful house owner waited, and waited. However weeks have handed, and the seeds haven’t sprouted. He’s questioning why.

In a seek for solutions, we turned to Adam Wortman, superintendent at Hart Ranch Golf Membership, in Fast Metropolis, S.D, which lately underwent a renovation that concerned new seeding of 6.5 acres of tough, fairway and tees. Diagnosing from a distance is difficult, after all. However Wortman, who works in an analogous local weather to that of Minnesota, is aware of all in regards to the obstacles that include seeding. We requested him the place he thought issues might need gone awry in our staffer’s yard, and what might be finished to make them proper.

GOLF.com: The very first thing we puzzled about is compaction. Is it attainable the soil was simply packed too agency from these concrete slabs for the seeds to take root?

Wortman: I thought-about that, too. However I don’t assume that’s the case right here, particularly since he raked the bottom and put down a layer of high soil as nicely. With three or 4 inches of high soil, he ought to have been good to go. It helps for those who get the seeds down into that soil a bit. On the golf course, we’ll use what’s known as a Brillion seeder for that. Or we’ll run over them with a knobby tire simply so the seeds can’t wash or blow away. You need to use virtually something. At dwelling, you possibly can step on the seeds together with your tennis shoe and press them down.

GOLF.com: No threat of damaging the seeds if you do this?

Wortman: Nah. Perhaps for those who went over them repeatedly with a mower. However not by rolling over them or stepping down on them together with your tennis shoe.

GOLF.com: If compaction’s not the problem, is it attainable he simply has unhealthy soil?

Wortman: I don’t assume that’s the problem, both. You’ll be able to see within the image he’s received grass rising proper close by, and in addition to, that high soil ought to have been sufficient to provide the seeds a great rising surroundings.

GOLF.com: There was a day of heavy rain. Any likelihood the seeds simply received washed away?

Wortman: Washouts occur. However I don’t assume that’s the case right here. It’s a reasonably small space and within the picture, it seems to be fairly flat. It’s not on a slope or something. The rain might need moved that seed round a bit. However I don’t assume it could have washed all of it away.

One among a number of naked patches in an issue Minnesota garden.

Robert Beringela

GOLF.com: Folks usually say that one of the best time to plant grass seed is the autumn. May or not it’s that he was simply attempting to develop grass on the incorrect time of yr?

Wortman: I do know guys who will seed within the fall. They’ll dormant-seed it and wait til spring and see what comes up after which seed what doesn’t take. My drawback with the autumn is the nighttime temperatures, particularly the place I’m and the place he’s. It will possibly get so chilly. I choose to do it within the spring, when the soil and air temperatures begin to come up. You want the appropriate temperatures. We’ve had some chilly nights and frost currently, and frost is horrible for brand new seed. You actually wish to do it when nighttime temperatures are above 50 levels and floor temperatures are between 55 to 60. That’s optimum. Something beneath that and people seeds are simply going to sit down there.

GOLF.com: The temps had been nicely above that in Minnesota, so looks as if we are able to verify that off the checklist, too.

Wortman: Sounds prefer it.

GOLF.com: That brings us to watering.

Wortman: It does. That was actually the massive query I had. Was he retaining that seed mattress moist on a regular basis?

GOLF.com: He was watering twice a day. Not sufficient?

Wortman: I don’t assume it was. This will’t be a kind of offers the place you say, I watered it as soon as earlier than I went to work after which once more once I received dwelling. It’s essential arrange a timer. Or have somebody water it each couple hours. Mild and frequent watering to maintain that seed mattress moist — for those who do this, you’re going to have a lot extra success. You don’t want the water to be pooling up throughout. Simply get the highest two inches moist, and preserve them moist. When you see the seeds begin popping out of the bottom, then you can begin backing off the watering a bit.

GOLF.com: “Mild and frequent.” How usually and the way a lot is that?

Wortman: After we seeded for our renovation, we had been watering six instances a day for about two minutes. In two hours, it could dry out and our sprinklers would come on once more. We had been non secular about it. You’ve received to be. You’ve received to spoon-feed that new seed.

GOLF.com: If he began that form of watering schedule. Now, is there an opportunity that seed would nonetheless develop?

Wortman: I believe there’s a great likelihood it could. He ought to give it a strive. And when the seeds begin to develop, he may see the place there are gaps and fill them in.

GOLF.com: How lengthy ought to he count on it to take?

Wortman: The place he’s, in Minnesota, presently of yr, I’d say round 10 days. He ought to begin seeing one thing developing.

GOLF.com: And if nothing does, he can strive re-seeding? 

Wortman: Completely. 

GOLF.com: And if that fails, the nuclear possibility, proper? He ought to simply sod?

Wortman: Yep. Simply lay down a strip a sod. The great factor with that’s you don’t should do the sunshine and frequent watering. Simply soak that sod within the morning and once more within the afternoon and depart it for the day. You don’t should child that sod such as you do new seed. New seed is hard.

Josh Sens

Golf.com Editor

A golf, meals and journey author, Josh Sens has been a GOLF Journal contributor since 2004 and now contributes throughout all of GOLF’s platforms. His work has been anthologized in The Greatest American Sportswriting. He’s additionally the co-author, with Sammy Hagar, of Are We Having Any Enjoyable But: the Cooking and Partying Handbook.

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