Reseeding a lawn..

We've finished some major construction on our tear down and rebuild house, and now our lawn is in need of reseeding in some large areas.. The soil is predominately a black dense soil and the water table, at least at this time is somewhere around 8-10" down in the low spots. I don't think there's any real amounts of clay in it and I know other than a few small boulders around, there aren't any (*any*) rocks.. The area could be described as swampy as the ground simply doesn't drain.. Central New York (snow just left and looks like it might stay gone).

My plan: run an aerator over the whole area to tear things up (it's quite compacted in the spots we've been driving over), then reseed.

My questions:

A. I've heard that there's 2 types of "contractor grass seed", one that only lasts a year and another that stays. Since my goal is to make a decent looking lawn (not a golf course), I'm trying to keep things cheap. I've also heard of using oats to get some root structure established, then plant grass over it toward fall.. Suggestions appreciated..

B. What's a good general fertilization regimen to get it to take off.. If it rains at all this spring (it didn't at all last year), moisture should most definitely not be a problem.

I'm in a rural area and the most my neighbors do for their lawns is maybe mow it a couple times a month. I don't want a backyard full of weeds though.

Thanks for any tips!

Reminds me of a sign a guy a work used to have.

Good Fast Cheap

Pick any two.

The notion of a decent lawn and cheap contractor's seed are incompatible. The best thing you can do is get a high quality grass seed that is suited to the location. People make the mistake of saving $100 on grass seed, then spend 10 times that in a few years on chemicals to fight disease, insects, etc and still don't have a lawn that looks right.

The idea of aeration is good, but to seed it I would use a slice seeder, as that is best way of getting seed established, short of hydroseeding. Use a starter fertilizer. And get the PH tested and adjust as necessary. Since you're doing this in the Spring instead of Fall, you will probably want to put down a pre-emergent crabgrass control in late April that is safe for new grass, eg Tupersan. You could fertilize again in mid to late May, then again in early Sept and mid Oct. I would not fertilize over the summer.

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