Is your lawn in sun or shade? If shade, it will be difficult to fill in those bare patches.

Fall is the best time to seed, the type of seed will depend upon your soil and sun, ask at a good garden centre or ask your lawn maintenance guy.

See below for a helpful link, at the end of the link are two more links.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lawn

There are a couple of fairly different schools of thought on lawns. Those that want the manicured golf green look, and those that want a healthy lawn. Golf green looks require lots of pesticides, specific grass selections and generally a fair bit of work. Healthy lawns are lower maintenence, require few or no pesticides, and not much maintenence. I'm not a golf green fan so I don't know much about how to get that look - actually I don't particularly like lawn at all, but I recognise that a bit of lawn is nice in between the flower beds :-)

Now is the best time to repair your lawn. It's probably best to assume your lawn needs a complete rejuvination, especially if you have a lot of bare patches. Step one is to rent or buy an aerator (or hire someone to do it). This is a tiller-like contraption that punches holes in your lawn. Run it over your whole lawn, even the good looking parts.

Next step is to spread some compost about a half an inch thick to an inch thick all over your lawn - even the good parts.

Now you need to pick a good seed selection for your lawn. A good seed mix will have at least two and preferably three different sorts of seed in it, to encourage diversity - this means a healthier lawn. Some grass mixes are better suited to sun or shade, but a fully shady area will not grow any grass well. Consider a mix with clover in it. Clover is a nitrogen fixer, basically that means it will make nitrogen available to the grasses in your lawn, so you will need to apply less fertilizer. Clover also stays green in the heat of summer, so you won't have a dead looking lawn if there's not enough rain. Clover was a standard part of a lawn once upon a time, and only became a weed when an herbicide to kill it was developed. Your local Canadian Tire/Rona/Home Depot/nursery should have at least one or two sorts of grass seed mixes to pick from.

Once you have picked a grass mix that will suit your conditions you should seed your entire lawn with it. If you seed only the bare patches with it, the grass will come in patchy, a different colour than your existing lawn, and obviously funny looking. Don't skimp on the seeds - if you try to use less than is recommended, you will have a patchy looking lawn.

Water well, but be careful that you don't waterlog or wash away your compost and new seeds. Keep the seeds/compost damp (not soaking wet) until you see the seeds germinating, and then cut back on the watering slowly.

For maintenence, you are best off mowing the grass at a height of at least two inches (2 1/2 is better). Longer grass will outcompete most weeds, be more resistant to pests (like grubs), have a better root system and require less supplemental watering.

BP

Lawns can be nice, a lot of work, mowing, feeding, watering, repeat, repeat, and then in about Aug. they dry up and turn brown. The solution to all this frustration can be as simple as using ground covers, pathways, flower beds, shrubbery, a pond,a rockery, sitting areas,and such, much more interesting. Study your property and start small, you will be much happier. Rai

Thanks for your messages. Appreciate it.
Is this the right time to seed my lawn or should I wait till spring?
Someone told me that now I should be just looking at aerating the lawn and applying fertilizer and then really working on it in early spring?
Does that make sense ?

Spring and Fall are overseeding times. What grass seeds like to germinate are warmish days and cool nights. As such you waste your money to try germinating grass seed in summer but now is good and then come spring if there are still a few bare bits you can seed again in just the bare bits.

Barb
southern Ontario, CANADA

viks,

BP has a lot of good advice for you!

You can do the bulk of the work now. Fall is the ideal time. It's as simple as aerating, feeding with compost, and then seeding.

Two things she mentions are crucial if you don't want to be continually frustrasted with your lawn - the white clover and the height of the cut on the mower.

When we first moved here in 2001, the lawn had been fed with herbicides and pesticides and we made an effort to get away from that since we have a child which loves to play outside and we have pets. Our lawn used to go bone dry in the summer and turn to a crisp.

Now, 5 years later, we have people asking us what 'company' we use for our lawn. We don't use any. We simply feed the lawn in the fall, and during the spring and summer just before a rainy day we sprinkle used coffee ground on it. The white clover has spread within the lawn and is now feeding it throughout as well.

Our lawn this summer...

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Here is a link that might be useful: Lawn Care posting of interest.

Thanks all, for your help.
Appreciate it :)

There are some good videos if you follow the link that Tiffy gave - one of them on clover is a real hoot! The guy with the red suspenders was right on with his information, but he had me laughing hysterically! They do have an advertisement you have to sit through first, which is kind of irritating, but I guess they have to fund their videos somehow.

BP