Is your lawn looking thin? Does it have bare spots or traffic patterns? Did the hot Kansas City weather take its toll? No matter the reason, when you need overseeding to thicken your lawn, Custom Lawn & Landscape is the company to call. With over 30 years of lawn seeding experience, we can tell you step by step, exactly what you can expect when you hire us to seed your lawn.
Pre-Seeding Schedule
You Request Service
Once you request seeding services, we confirm the mowing day. (If you are a mowing customer, we schedule the renovation for the day after the mowing day. If you mow your own grass, we have you mow the day before we schedule the seeding. In some cases, we will mow for the customer directly before doing the aeration, verticutting, and seeding.) We schedule the marking of the sprinkler heads or deliver flags to you to mark your own sprinklers.
One Week Before
We call the week before to make sure we are still on schedule, reconfirm mowing arrangements and marking arrangements. We also finalize the day the service will be done and remind you to water normally right up until the day before we are to renovate your lawn.
One Day Before
The day before we renovate, we call one more time to confirm everything is ready to go and prepare to do the work. We remind you to turn off sprinklers and don’t water the day before we do the work.
Seeding Day Details
On the day of the work, the crew will confirm that underground obstacles are marked, then we begin our 7-Step Seeding Process:
Step 1 – Mow a Little Shorter
First, we recommend you mow the lawn a bit shorter than normal. This provides the best chance at getting good seed-to-soil contact. WIthout that, your seed will not germinate.
Step 2 – We Aerate the Lawn
Second, we recommend aerating your lawn. Here in Kansas City, we have some of the worst soil. Our soil contains high amounts of clay which compacts easily. Aeration removes small plugs of dirt and grass, allowing water and nutrients to reach the roots more easily. Aerating also brings bare soil to the surface of your lawn so more of your grass seed will germinate. We will double check with you to make sure we avoid hitting any sprinklers, dog fences or utilities buried underground. In cases where the lawn is bare or needs complete renovation, we will verticut the seeded area also.
Step 3 – We Use the Right Variety of Grass Seed
We use the best grass seed, hand selected from thousands of varieties, for our exact growing conditions here in Kansas City. Our experience has proven year after year that 100% turf-type Tall Fescue seed works great in most KC area lawns. Modern turf-type Tall Fescue provides the very best combination of that fine texture that feels great on bare feet, and tolerance to the weather extremes we experience in our area.
Step 4 – We Use Top Quality Grass Seed
If you think grass seed is grass seed and there’s not a lot of difference…think again. Not all grass seed is created equal. We plant the best quality grass seed. Many brands contain a certain percentage of weed seeds mixed in. Our seed contains “0% weed seeds” and “0% other crops”. We never add weeds to your lawn! We seed the lawn, and then we hand seed and hand rake/hand cultivate the corners and edges where the aerator can’t reach to make sure they recover and grow back as well.
Step 5 – Cleanup
Finally, we clean up any mud and mess from the hard surfaces, being careful not to blow seed off the bare edges.
Step 6 – We Leave After-Care Instructions
This is the part we leave in your hands – water…water…water! That’s it! We provide watering, mowing, fertilizing, and proper care instructions to get your new grass off to a great start and help you avoid any mistakes.
Step 7 – Return Visit
We return in 3-4 weeks to re-fertilize and treat any weeds that may have popped up, this last step is reserved for customers who are on our Custom 7-Step Lawn Care Program.
