Choosing Grass Seed For Your Lawn
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At dirt works, we make it very easy to choose the seed you need. The names of our seed mixes tell most of the story about their application. We have "Shade Mix", "Sandy Soil Mix", "Shorty Mix" and so on. There are a few basic things you'll want to establish before you buy grass seed for your lawn.

• Soil Type
  • This can be determined by digging up a small area and examining the soil.
  • If the soil falls apart easily and is a light brown you can make a reasonable bet it's called sandy soil.
  • If you want to make a quick check as to whether it has "fines" in it, you can rub a little onto the fat part of your hand below the thumb and see if it leaves a skid mark. If it does, you have some fines, the degree of which you can detrmine by how much sticks to your skin.
  • Soil texture is a little trickier to amend than soil fertility. Texture refers to the size of the soil particles or crumb structure. Sandy soils have very large particles. Water, air and plant roots can move freely in sandy soils, sometimes too much so. At the other end of the spectrum is clay. Clay particles are so small they pack together tightly and leave little room for water, air or roots. If you’ve ever tried to garden in baked clay you know it also leaves little room for a shovel blade.
  • The best soil is a mixture of some clay, some sand and organic matter. It's the rare person who has the perfect mix of these ingredients but, grass can grow in a wide range of soils so, unless you have pure wet sticky clay or pure sand with little nutirent content our premixed seed varieties will work well for you.
  • Amending poorly drained soils and really bad sandy soils can be done and we have products to help you do that if you need to.
• Mixtures
  • Presently we sell what are sometimes called "Dormant" types of seeds. These are seed varieties and mixes that require a frost season or dormant season between growth years.
  • We are working to establish a good relationship with a seed house the has southern and warm climate seed. Stay tuned.
• Wear and Tear
  • Consider how your lawn will be used. You may have different wear patterns in different areas of your property and that means you can seed it with different mixes to accomodate those requirements.
  • Many suburban front yards are mostly for show and receive very little wear and tear. In a case like this, you might choose a variety like "Athletic Mix" for it elegant appearance.
  • Areas of play and recreation might do better with a Playgound mix or Conservation mix with good recuperative characteristics and lower cost for reseeding. No grass is indestructable and occassional overseeding and rest is required in areas of high traffic.
  • If you have shady areas that receive light only a couple of hours a day or mottled light throughout the day, a Shady mix will be in order.
  • If you recently did battle with lawn grubs and you live in an area prone to such infestations our "Grub R" mix will help a lot. Treating your lawn with Milky Spore and Nematodes will help kill off the beetle grubs. Remember, if you have them, you're neighbors probably do too. See if you can persuade them to treat their lawn too. Some people don't care much about their lawns and may not be interested in doing anything. The best thing you can do is treat your lawn and apply the nematodes at least twice a year as insurance against further infestation.
  • If you don't want to be a lawn scientist and you've had a pretty good lawn up to now and just want to overseed with a good generalized mix that will do well under a wide range of soils and wear patterns, then something like our "Green Mountain Special" will do just fine. It makes a nice looking deep green lawn. It contains no annual grass so, it takes longer to germinate than conservation mix or similar mixes like that.
• Clover in the Mix
  • The corporate fertilizer and lawn companies have done a very good job of teaching people that Clover is a weed. They even put it in the category of "Broad Leaf" weeds and have many toxic products you can buy to kill it off.
  • You'll notice that some of our seed mixes contain Clover. That's because Clover adds nitrogen to the soil and helps cut down on your fertilizer inputs over time.
  • Clover also helps break up hard pan and clay soils. The roots of Clover and plants like Alfalfa can go as deep as two feet, reaching down into layers of soil for nutrients and moisture that grass roots usually have no access too. Clover can offer shade to grass during times of intense heat and drought as well and constibute to the over all health of your lawn.
  • If you have an over abundance of clover it can happen for a few reasons at least. Even though clover produces nitrogen, some varieties thive on nitrogen as well. Over fertilizing with synthetic fertilizers that provide an abundance of water soluble nitrogen can be one of the causes. Reducing that type of input will help bring the problem under control in time. Clover is a prolific seed producer so, don't expect miracles overnight.
  • If you live in a rural area clover seeds are often in the wind so, doing battle with them will be an expensive, never ending futile battle.
  • Another thing you can do is enjoy a Clover lawn and stop buying expensive cancer causing chemicals to kill it. It could save some one's life and your dogs and cats will thank you! Did you know that of the dogs that don't die from car accidents and physical harm, 75 of them die from cancer?
  • Clover requires infrequent mowing and can produce a thick carpet of soft green texture that provides flowers for the bees and good low maintainance cover all year round.
  • Some species of clover only persist for 2 to 3 years so sometimes the "Problem" if you define it as one, will go away by itself. Just keep mowing with sharp blades at regular intervals and cut out aplications of synthetic fertilizer and toxic weed killers and things can find their way back to balance all by themselves in time.
• Fertilizer
  • I think you know where I'm going with this header already. Use organic fertilizer only.
  • Fertilize Spring and Early Fall or as necessary. Follow our new organic four step program if you like.
  • Some lawns have such good soil you don't need to fertilizer at all or only once every other year.
  • Don't over apply thinking you'll have a healthier lawn. Weeds like fertilizer as much as grass does. More is not always better. Follow the recommendation on the bag. Click this link for liquid fertilizer.
  • When starting new lawns and over seeding always fertilize at the same time. Liquid or granular is fine.
• Links
  • Organic Lawn Care
  • Fertilizer Labels
  • Fall lawn care
  • Establishing Turf from Seed
  • Renovating Old Lawns
  • Buy Your Grass Seed Here

Lawns are a part of the American landscape now. For many people lawns are their primary opportunity to interact with the natural world day to day. Unless you live in a rural area noted for huge tracts of open space and wilderness, the back yard and the green space that separates the different venues like vegetable gardens, flower and herb gardens, play areas for the kids and the like are very important space. One very important thing to remember when planning, planting and caring for your lawn is that, even though it's a natural space, it's not natural.

That sounds conflicted I know but, it's true. mother nature never produced a lawn anywhere. Grassy areas have always existed but, left to their own devices, the will usually become forested over time and disappear until what we call, "A Natural Disaster" comes along and clears the land again to start the cycle all over once more.

So, when you're out there planting and taking care of your lawn, remember that you're fighting against the forces of nature and she has all the time and resources to undo anything you're doing. This means that, you can expend an awfull lot of time, money and energy producing a maintanance headache for yourself if you're not careful. However, if you accept the idea that most of what we've been taught about lawns in the past century is full of disinformation and sometime patently false statements designed to get people to shell out lots of money for products they don't need and learn to work with nature, you can produce a thing of beauty that will bring you joy, safety and satisfaction that will last for years to come.