Best Grass Seed for Shady Lawn

Our lawn in Raleigh is pretty much total shade. We would love to have your advice on the best grass seed to use. We are avid listeners to you show!

-- Connie


Anne's Response

The lawn that best tolerates shade is a mixture of fescue and bluegrass but with full shade and competition from tree roots you will never have a lush green lawn.

Reseeding a Damaged Lawn

I live in Charlotte, NC, and have the typical lawn damage sustained from the recent drought. Due to some health problems we were not able to overseed year before last as well, so my lawn is mostly crab grass. I have been putting down lime over the previous month and plugging the yard about every two weeks to improve conditions for growth. Would I be better off to "Round Up" the entire small yard before overseeding? Would it be a mistake to till up the yard and bring in a small load of topsoil or compost? Is it too early to do this or should I wait till the end of September?

-- B. Long


Anne’s Response:

With the problems you have had with weeds I suggest you use Roundup as quickly as possible to kill the weeds and existing grass. You can till the soil about 10 days after the spraying, rake out the dead weeds and grass and then re-seed the lawn. If you can find a good source of weed free compost you could add that at the time you till. In Piedmont North Carolina it is usually safe to reseed a fescue lawn until October 15.