Hydroseeding a lawn is an essential skill for any gardener. It not only improves the appearance of your lawn, but it will also keep it from dying from drought. Although it’s often associated with large family farms, hydroseeding Rochester NY is a very simple process that happens almost anywhere. If you own or manage a private lot, chances are you’ve experienced the frustrating outdoor task of finding and removing horrified grass seeds within a few days of being placed there. It’s probably something you’ve thought about doing at some point, but given how difficult it is to remember all the different varieties of annual grass, methods and timescales involved, it can be challenging to know where and when to start. In this article, we explain how to hydroseed your lawn in just a few days using simple, low-tech methods that are sure to work for most properties.
What is hydroseeding?
Hydroseeding is the process of adding water to the base species of an annual lawn to raise its water content to a greater extent than the original soil would allow. It’s often done during the hot, dry summer months to promote flowering and fruit production, as well as to repel weeds. Getting the soil as water-logged as possible is the key to hydroseeding. Once the soil is saturated, it’s more difficult for plants to root, especially when there’s no runoff water to fall back on. Most hydroseeding is done by hand, but the equipment is used when seeding dense flat fields or when more specific aims are desired, such as increasing the water retention of a particular lawn type.
How to Hydroseed Your Lawn
There are many different ways to hydroseed a lawn, and all have their advantages and disadvantages. We’ll discuss the most common methods, starting with the easiest. 1. Sprinkling the surface This is probably the most common way to hydroseed a lawn, and it’s how we do it at GardenSpa Australia. We sprinkle the surface of the lawn one time, about three weeks before our annual grass seedings. After the first week, we continue to sprinkle the surface, about every other week, for about two months. This is an extremely quick and easy way to hydroseed a large or sukekiseki (large-scale) lawn. 2. Drip irrigation is a gentle, pulsed approach that gets the water into the soil more quickly. It’s ideal for small gardens, hiking areas, and roads where runoff is unlikely. 3. Soak-and-ripen method This is a more traditional means of adding water to the soil, and it’s still used occasionally on large farms. It’s ideal for very large, complicated projects such as building a retaining wall or making a large pond. Soak the soil for about 24 hours, and then drain and thoroughly dry the soil. Add more water according to the soil’s saturation level, and then wait another 24 hours before watering again. 4. Hand compacting This is the slowest and most labor-intensive way to add water to the soil, and it’s also the one we use for seeding dense flat fields or for seeding specific strains of grasses. The process is similar to the soak-and-ripen method, but instead of draining and drying the soil, we just compact it.
Conclusion
In just a few days, you can create a beautiful, hydrated lawn with very little effort on your part. Hydroseeding your lawn is a simple, low-tech method that will help it retain more water and keep better control of the soil’s fertility.
