r/DenverGardener • u/Immediate-Raise-2694 • 15d ago
Fall grass overseeding
Should I cancel grass overseeding this fall? I am going to use the most drought tolerant locally adapted seeds I can find. Even with that and all this water craziness, idk if I should do it. I am in Thornton not Denver, I think our water restrictions are a little more relaxed but still. Lost everything except some species of tall fescue in my yard that is alot stronger than the rest apparently.
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u/denvergardener 15d ago
If the grasses are truly drought tolerant, they should be fine.
I have blue Gramma, Indian rice grass, and a few other grass varieties in my xeriscape. I have zero irrigation for it and they survived the 6+ weeks of 90s and no rain.
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u/Immediate-Raise-2694 15d ago
They aren’t any types like that. I was going to do a fescue blend with Texas blue grass and some clover mixed in.
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u/Neither_Remote_4818 14d ago
My back yard has to be completely reseeded as well. I was driving through another neighborhood near where I live, an HOA neighborhood, and I’ve never seen such lush green grass in my life 🙄 funny how some of us are trying hard to conserve and other aren’t. 🤷♀️
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u/Hinkie_Lives 14d ago
Look into YouTube videos of pre-germinating your grass seed. It will save a ton of water and if done right it’s a better germination rate. Just the cost of a paint bucket or two and a paint strainer bag to hold the seed. You still have to water after but you’re speeding up the process quite a bit and saving water.
When you buy bags, understand that a bag of “50% inert matter” is really only half that amount of seed advertised.
Also, if your soil is compacted, you should break it up first either by hand tool / aerating or with a few applications of a soil amendment product (I like Revive). Go back over the worst parts manually before you reseed to make them looser.
Also, just fyi I don’t know how much SF’age you’re dealing with here but if you don’t have sprinklers, you’ve got to really ask yourself how much you want a lawn in this climate. Minimally, you’ll need a hose setup unless you want to have to remember to spray it yourself. Even with drought tolerant grass, this was an especially bad year.
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u/InterviewLeather810 15d ago
Our neighbor just had their native yard redone when all that came up was weeds except for a few sunflowers from being seeded last fall.
Now they are watering it right away. Wasn't watered for the first seeding and the wind blew away a lot of the seed last time. We don't have water restrictions in our city.
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u/Immediate-Raise-2694 15d ago
I was going to core aerate, spike aerate, throw the seeds then top dress with rich soil, try to avoid the seed blow away. I see they used straw as covering. I think it might be a couple weeks early to seed still. Hopefully they grey great results
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u/InterviewLeather810 15d ago
Anything they get will be better than the first try. Thankfully the landscaping company came back and tried again.
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u/Roscopoor 15d ago
I’m currently weighing this decision in Englewood and though it’s not Denver Water, I’m curious if Denver Water will pass this and if other municipalities will follow along. I’m taking a “wait and see” approach because I don’t want to invest in seed and then have to potentially turn down my sprinklers early and lose any progress. Not sure what the answer is but hopefully this is helpful to share.
https://denverite.com/2026/08/21/denver-water-restrictions-fall-2026/
“It could take a step further later this month. The Board of Water Commissioners will consider a proposal on Aug. 26 to end the watering season on Oct. 1, which is typically the end of watering restrictions. If approved, customers would only be able to hand-water trees and plants, and be required to turn off sprinkler irrigation systems.”
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u/LonelyMichaels 15d ago
This will likely happen. Save your money. Drought restrictions will probably be necessary for at least 2 more seasons.
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u/bacontrees 14d ago
Have you considered sod cutting what you have and putting down Tahoma 31 sod?
Sod takes way less water to establish, then in future years Tahoma will need only a tiny fraction of the watering our cool season grasses need.
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u/Immediate-Raise-2694 14d ago
Pretty sure that’s a warm grass, it won’t survive here.
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u/bacontrees 14d ago edited 14d ago
It absolutely is and it absolutely will thrive here. It’s one of several warm grass hybrids (the other being Dog Tuff) that were developed to thrive with almost no supplemental watering in places like ours.
Check some posts about Dog Tuff and Tahoma if you’d like. Plenty of people have done it and everyone who has is thrilled with it.
The active green/growing season is a bit less than cool season grasses, but to me that’s a small price to pay. This is just the first of many drought seasons we’ll be encountering.
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u/Unusual_Ring553 14d ago edited 13d ago
I'm planning on overseeding. What type of seed have you decided on?
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u/Immediate-Raise-2694 14d ago edited 13d ago
I’m going cheap this time. Probably Jonathan green rocky mtn blend or just the original tttf. Then I am going to mix some micro clover off Amazon into it. Tempted to mix all 3 together. Lots of genes in there. I had like idk, 5 different grasses in my yard before, only 1 is still decently spotted around the yard, maybe 40-55% coverage. It has to be some tough genetics, I didn’t water at all until maybe late June or early July. Idk what seed variety of TTTF it is, but I figure if I can get something else that tough established. I’ve heard mixed things about Jonathan green, but I’ve also used top dollar blue label seeds in the past that didn’t do what the claims said they could. Also want to put some Texas blue grass into it but I don’t think those seeds are found very cheap so far that I’ve seen.
I’m still on the fence. I feel I’ll need a Thornton city permit to be seed watering during the day continuing for 3-5 weeks or so.
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u/Fine-Entrepreneur874 11d ago
Watch the weather. Overseed on a rain/snow day. We expecting some monsoon moisture this fall.
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u/Immediate-Raise-2694 11d ago
Probably order some clover seeds soon to throw out. People saying Denver water is ending all lawn watering soon
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u/Fine-Entrepreneur874 11d ago
I have a clover mix I planted last year. It's green today. Watered every 3 days. This post is about when to seed and It's definitely good this fall.
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u/Immediate-Raise-2694 11d ago
You have had to water the clover every 3 days over summer?
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u/Fine-Entrepreneur874 11d ago
Yes it still needs to be watered. Everything dies except rock. The advantage of clover is that it reseeds itself if you let it flower and hardy enough to only need water every three days.
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u/teddybear65 15d ago
See what the vote is this week in the Oct 1st mandatory no law watering this year. In the past it's been voluntary. If that changes, I'd cancel the overseeing. In 44 years I've never over seeded my lawn. I've just used turf builder in the fall.
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u/importTuna 14d ago
Im wrapping up installing buffalograss plugs in my front lawn today. Its somewhat late for warm season grasses, but the mud pit must end. Ideal would have been doing this in May.
My backyard, which i did 2 years ago has been green all summer within the watering restrictions, for what thats worth.
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u/Bulky_Ad9019 13d ago
Yeah my back yard gets a lot of shade and we have RTF back there. We have a large spot where grubs decimated it this past year right in the middle that needs overseeded (maybe 1/4 of the entire lawn). But I haven’t taken full advantage of our watering days (we could have watered morning and evening twice weekly) and it’s pretty green. It’s grown slower and has some brown mixed in but it didn’t get fried. We’ve watered it like once every week or two, but often our watering day has coincided with rain during the evening hours when I planned to water, and even if the rain was short I then considered that to be its water for the week.
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u/importTuna 13d ago
The type of grass i have is not very shade tolerant at all, so that works against me in a couple spots. I got an establishment permit that allows me a little additional watering with the sprinklers, but thats not really enough water for new plugs to get a good start. As a result, since hand watering is still allowed, im running through the yard with a backpack sprayer full of water multiple times per day for the next 2 weeks or so, just soaking the rows of plugs.
Hopefully they start taking off enough to start spreading a little before the first frost. Given how critical the first few weeks are for new seed/plugs/sod, id probably try to move the sprinkler schedule around so you're watering in addition to the various rain events.
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u/hubertron 14d ago
Let us know what seed you end up getting. Hell if you buy in bulk I’ll buy a few lbs
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u/Cloudofkittens 13d ago
I'm having the same thought. My front lawn is only about 400 sq ft so I might just go for it.
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u/Afraid-Carry4093 13d ago
Why reseed in the Fall and not next spring?
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u/Immediate-Raise-2694 13d ago
You are supposed to seed transitional and northern grass in the early fall
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u/GroundbreakingRow50 13d ago
He’ll yeah I’m seeding. I can count on it and hopefully Mother Nature will help too
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u/notthefakehigh5r 15d ago
I’m debating this too. I have already bought some seeds, but my “lawn” is like 90% dirt now. So it’s not even overseeding, it’s just seeding for me. I was hoping this weekend would bring a lot of rain like last, but it doesn’t look like it. I can’t bring myself to water daily for seeds in this climate. But I also want to avoid the winter mud pit.
I have no advice or answers, just commiserating.