Best grass for central Ohio?

The man who does my gutters also aerates lawns. My front yard has been almost taken over by creeping charlie (ground ivy). He thinks that if he aerates and puts in a lot of grass seed that we can bring back the grass in a couple years.

What do you think? What kind of grass seed should we use?

Marilyn

Reply to
Allview
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Blue fescue, perennial rye, Kentucky bluegrass. Any cool season grass is good. After you aerate, I suggest top dressing with a quarter inch of compost, then overseeding. It is too late to do that now in your area.

Reply to
animaux

The petite fescues seem to work best for me in Cincinnati. They stay green and require little water in the heat of summer. I didn't water at all this year. I have also drastically cut back on the application of fertilizer.

I don't know if you can successfully chock-out the creeping Charlie. You might need to eliminate the lawn and start over next year.

Reply to
Vox Humana

Marilyn,

Fescue mixes will do best for you. I used a mix to revitalize our lawn space this year as well. FWIW, it's getting a bit late to be planting grass in our area though -- cold weather is starting to settle in so I'd probably be more optimistic for a re-seeding in the spring.

Now the ground ivy/vines (have you positively ID'd it as Creeping Charlie?) is another story. A good description comes from

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"Creeping Charlie or ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) is a perennial weed that spreads by seeds, rhizomes and creeping stems that root at the nodes. The leaves are round or kidney-shaped, bright green, hairy and opposite with scalloped leaf edges. The flowers are small, purplish blue and funnel-shaped. It is a type of mint, so it has square (four-sided) stems; and when the plant is crushed, a strong mint-like odor is emitted."

Aerating and then seeding is not going to knock that out if it's all but taken over. If your yard is primarily covered with this, then I'd wait until spring, hit it with RoundUp, then break the soil, aerate, and re-seed altogether. (A broadleaf pesticide will help as well.) Anything else would just be a precursor to failure. You can try pulling it out, but be sure to get as much of the root system as possible since it uses rhizomes to spread. A weed-pulling party would probably be more expensive than RoundUp (pizza and beer) but that combined with aeration and overseeding may do the trick. You may also want to take a look at drainage -- Charlie likes it moist so you might need to adjust drainage a bit to make it more friendly to lawn and less so for him. :)

James

Reply to
JNJ

Thank you. I have a large bag of mushroom compost he could put down before seeding. This is just a front yard on the south side.

The price is low so I'm going to try it. He says he did it 2 years in a row on his yard and it looks good. Earlier next year.

I don't know what the weather will be like but sometimes we don't even have any snow until after Christmas. I should have the whole yard replaced but I'm doing so many other expensive things to this house now.

Marilyn

Reply to
Allview

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