The Lazy Way to A Greener Lawn: 7 Overseeding Tips

Green lawns tie gardens together. They’re perfect for kids, pets, and gardeners to play on! Though there are some downsides to having large lawns, these negative effects stem from age-old practices you don’t have to follow. 

Rather than mowing frequently, fertilizing often, and using harmful herbicides and pesticides, you can use organic practices to create lush lawns. Overseeding, dethatching, and mowing infrequently are some of the many lawn care practices you can try this year.

What you should do depends on your garden and your preferences. If you want more wildlife habitat, converting lawns into meadows or pollinator gardens is best. If you need some grass to walk on or for your children to play on, there are alternative plants aside from grasses that require less maintenance. 

No matter what your needs are, these seven tips will help guide you through the overseeding and the lawn renovation process. You’ll have healthy, green lawns before you know it!

Organic Plant Food

Our Rating

Espoma Bio-tone Starter Plus Organic Plant Food (4 lbs.)

Buy at Epic Gardening

Save The Bees Flower Mix

Our Rating

Save the Bees Flower Mix Seeds

Buy at Epic Gardening

Crimson
Clover

Our Rating

Crimson Clover Cover Crop Seeds

Buy at Epic Gardening

Clear Debris First

The first step in overseeding is proper preparation of your lawn—with the right prep work, your seed-sowing process will be easy-peasy! Start with dethatching—it’s a term for removing dead organic matter from the lawn to create room for new growth.

Dethatching is easy with the right tools. Commercial dethatchers are big, bulky, and incredibly expensive! You may use handheld tools with spikes and rollers for small and medium lawns. The thin, metal spikes pull up the dead grass blades while the rollers let you push the tool over the lawn. 

There are rakes, mower-type machines, and handheld rollers for dethatching. Choose whichever type works best for you and your yard. The mower-type machines are often the best choice, as there are electric options that work quickly with little effort on your part. 

After dethatching, scour the site for broadleaf weeds and other plants you don’t want growing, then pull them with your hands or a weeding tool. Some weeds, like clover, moss, and dandelions, are better left in the lawn! They cover the ground, are evergreen, and require less water than grass, so why not let them be?

Sow During the Right Season

Overseeding success relies heavily on the time of year and how much moisture is present in the soil. Seeds need consistent watering to swell, split their coats, and sprout their shoots into the air. If you sow seeds in late spring and early summer, they may dry before germinating. 

Set your garden up for success and sow grass or ground cover seeds at these times according to your USDA hardiness zone:

Fall or spring is ideal for seeding, as cool temperatures and natural rainfall promote seed germination. In cold and hot zones 1 and 11 through 13, consider growing other plants instead of grasses for lawns that tolerate your climate. 

Choose Vigorous Grass Varieties

A lazy lawn needs frost and drought-tolerant species that survive neglect. Whether you’re growing grasses, yarrows, or creeping thyme, choosing the right plant for the right spot will lead to less lawn maintenance in the future. 

The best grass species for your site depends on where you live and how your garden is set up. Location is everything—if you have many shady spots, you’ll want to opt for shade-tolerant plants that thrive under trees and shrubs. Sunny sites require drought-tolerant and sun-loving species.

A mixture of Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass is best for most sites in cold climates. The two overwinter well, and Kentucky bluegrass is relatively tolerant of heat and drought. In areas with little foot traffic, some varieties of perennial fescue are great options—they’re slow to establish, but drought, heat, and frost-tolerant.

Shady sites in cool regions require a mixture with more fine fescue than perennial ryegrass. Rough bluegrass is another good option, though it doesn’t tolerate foot traffic well. For warm climates, opt for Bermuda grass, seashore paspalum, or St. Augustine grass. These types tolerate heat, drought, and direct sunlight. 

Opt for Alternative Plants

When overseeding, you can choose hardy, low-growing plants instead of lawn grasses. Hardy plants often require less water than their grassy counterparts. They’re low maintenance, easy to care for, and perfect for areas with little foot traffic.

Use this chart to determine possible species for your lawn:

This chart is a starting point, as there are hundreds of other options you can try! Native plants, ornamental ground covers, and low-growing perennials are excellent choices no matter where you live. 

The final major factor to consider is your soil type. Determine if you have clay, sandy, or loamy soil. Clay is wet and soggy when moist, but turns hard and forms clumps when dry. It’s extremely fertile, whereas sandy sites are often lacking in nutrients. Loam is the ideal soil type—it’s a perfect mixture of clay, loam, and sand that absorbs water without becoming soggy.

You can create loam by adding compost to clay or sand. Composting turns organic waste into humus, a valuable soil component. Humus is the end product of decomposition. It’s nutritious, absorbent, and crumbly.

Establish A No-Mow Lawn

Instead of spending time and attention on unused lawn space, why not let the plants grow wild? Mowing creates a low base you can sit, play, or stand on. If you don’t need to use a part of the lawn, you can consider letting the plants grow tall. Let leaves fall on the space, and turn it into a habitat area for insects. 

Another option is to plant spreading, evergreen perennials that grow like grasses in cultivated settings. Creeping thyme, blue star creeper, and bugleweed are a few options that stay short, though depending on where you live, there are many more no-mow options. 

Overseeding is key here, just as it is when planting grass seed. Spread plenty throughout the site and rake them in at the appropriate depth. Water the area well so that the dirt is moist but not soggy. After the seeds germinate, thin the seedlings so they have proper space around them. 

Create Pathways Around Beds

Another aspect of lazy gardening is using space to your advantage. As creatures of habit, we often take the same paths when walking through the garden. Instead of cultivating an entire lawn, you can mow pathways around garden beds and tall grasses. 

Create a prairie-like space by allowing your lawn to grow tall around the pathways. Walking through this area will feel like strolling through a meadow! The plants may turn brown in winter or summer, providing ornamental interest with their structural stems. 

New growth in spring creates ornamental interest around the walkways, giving you reasons to look closely when taking strolls through the garden. You can also convert the tall areas to garden beds and grow perennials, shrubs, or trees to line the walkways.

Consider Fertilizing

Sometimes, poor lawn performance is because of poor soil! Soils lacking nitrogen, phosphorus, or potassium are tough for plants to grow in, and fertilizing or amending the space will help them thrive. Spreading compost once or twice a year is the best way to keep soil fertility at an optimum level.

Instead of compost, you can spread granular organic or slow-release fertilizer throughout the site in the fall or early spring. Avoid fertilizing in summer or winter, as the plants struggle to take the nutrients in while dormant.

Before fertilizing, consider using a soil testing kit. It’ll help you determine which nutrients the site lacks or has in excess. Then, you can add or leach away nutrients and make informed decisions when amending the dirt.