Charles A. Burger

what are you covering the seed with.  I too had the same troubles and then I started to lightly cover with a compost / topsoil mix that just covers the seed.  It does wonders.  I went from being really disappointed with a seed I used to very happy.  Took Seven days before I stared seeing germination as opposed to 14-21 days I saw without.  My guess is that it's easier to keep wet which I believe is the key?

my two cents with the patience part.  I've been mowing high for 3 years now.  And mowing multiple times in a week during the peak growing season.  Now I still have clover, but not that bad and it just means its putting Nitrogen into the soil.  I do get some dandelions, but nothing like the others around me and that is a change from before I started mowing high.  As far as other weeds, they are there, but mowing high is the best camouflage.  I have core aerated which really does help and I try and seed only in late august, early Sept with TF.  Not that spring won't work, you just have to tend to the seed far more and if you are prone to rough summers, you will be disappointed.  I have some trouble spots, including an extremely shady area in the back of my house, which nature might have fixed free for me now that a big tree limb got blown down during a strong storm yesterday.

I'm always uncomfortable doing something for the first time when I'm not sure how my results are going to present themselves or when.  All I can say is mow high is the first commandment to any lawn care problems you have.  The best thing I can think to say is use the information that is logical to you from this board.  There are a lot of great ideas that I just can't see working well only because of what I am personally dealing with.  Also, time is spead up on these boards, some threads might be spread out over 6 months, but you can read them in five minutes.

Alright I'm done.

sounds like it's still not worth the trouble.

OKay, bout 2 years ago I was reading some of the posts on this forum and there was discussion about this topic.  Wouldn't it be great to have the benefits of TF along with something that spreads with Rhizomes.

The general consensus was that anything to that date wasn't worth the effort.  Well I received a flyer today with a company wanting to see your lawn with RTF (Rhizomatous Tall Fescue)  It has a website www.aboutrtf.com

I was about to seed some bare spots and I was wondering if anybody has experience with this?

Please be patient with me, I take everything I see and read literally some times to a fault

paul wheaton wrote:
The best time to fertilize is also right about the first mow. But! You should not plant seed and fertilize at the same time. For new seedlings, the best time to fertilize is .... (wait for it) .... right about the first mow!

This confused me, Planting seed and ferilizing are best done right before the first mow, yet fertilizing and seeding should not be done at the same time?  What if the fertilizer is a feathermeal, I have espoma "turf-tone" 18-0-3.  Is that OK. 

paul wheaton wrote:
If you rough the ground up a bit and then lay down too much seed, then rough it up a bit more, then mist everything at least once a day, you'll be fine.

What is your definition of mist and if you had 10000 sq.ft. how would you mist it?  I know this isn't for the lazy yet, but If I do this right hopefully I won't have to do this much work again.

OK, we've established the time too seed, now I've used a broadcast spreader to drop last falls seed but I'm sure a lot didn't germinate because it wasn't making it to bare earth.  I thought I read about a different kind of seeding tool that puts the seed into the ground.  Have you ever heard of such a device?

What about fetilizing, can I do it now to make ure the soil is ready or wait until I seed?

I still need to fill in some bare spots and thicken the lawn in general.  When would the best time be?  I live in St. Louis and I think its zone 6a. 

Someone told me that leaves can make the soil acidic.

Currently I have 3 maples, 1 silver maple and a Gum tree.  Should I even go as far as to spread the leaves out and then mulch?

Thanks for the info.  And yes that is some coin which I cannot afford at this point.  I just want to go in a positive direction with out missing a critical planting window. 

Please explain what happens after grass goes dormant.  I've seen grass go brown and then the green comes back after a good amount of rain, however, in this case the brown grass is matted to the ground and just looks different.  I was doing pretty good about watering in the summer, but got caught not watering in september when it got hot again.

I've thought about just doing spots at a time, but I am not sure about which spots to pick.

Since I won't be getting the compost for the yard this year, when should I do it next year.  And should I just mow over the leaves that fall this year instead of picking them up?