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Our Gardening Supply Department has all of the products and tools that you need to succeed at any gardening task. Everything your garden or landscape needs can be found here…fertilizers, sprays, gardening and watering tools, seeds, and much more. At our Diagnostics Counter, our experts can identify mystery plants, solve insect and disease dilemmas, and answer your turf and seeding questions. We also provide extensive soil testing as well as informational brochures and handouts.
Our selection includes:
Bird supplies including houses, feeders and seed • Fertilizers for both lawn and garden with a large selection of organic products • Large selection of high quality grass seed • The finest selection of cutting, hand and long handled gardening tools • Gardening books • Watering supplies including sprinklers, nozzles and drip irrigation
Early Fall: The Best Time to Reseed Your Lawn
 Early fall, September and October, is the best time of the year to seed a new lawn or reseed an existing one. First, the seeds need warm soil temperatures, above 50° Farenheit, to sprout. We’ll certainly have that then. But unlike spring, it is not the time when weeds can sprout from seed, but the grass will. Once up and growing, the new grass will thrive in the cool weather of fall and early winter, which it does not do in summer heat. The same goes for putting down sod. Unfortunately, it is not a good time for starting Zoysia plugs in your lawn, as this warm weather grass goes dormant in the fall.
Before starting to put down grass seed, remember a few important steps:
• Weeds will take up space where seeds should be growing. Remove existing weeds using a non-selective Glysophate-based weed killer such as Roundup®. Then remove the dead weeds with a leaf rake. You will be able to seed the lawn two weeks after application without damage to the new grass seedling coming up.
• Cut your existing lawn low (about 1½ inches high). This is the only time you cut your grass this low. This will insure the grass seed falls to the soil.
• Sweep up any debris from the soil surface with a leaf rake. The debris becomes a barrier between the seed and the soil. Seeds will not sprout if they don’t make direct contact with soil.
• Make sure that the top of the soil is broken up so the grass roots can enter the surface of the soil. Newly-sprouted grass cannot get their roots into hard, compacted soil.
• Seed evenly, NOT THICKLY. If you have more than one layer of seed, only the layer on the bottom will ever have roots in the ground. More is not better!
• Keep the seed moist so that it does not dry out, which will prevent sprouting or kill the newly-sprouted seed plants. Do not drown the seed with heavy watering. Just thoroughly moisten it least twice a day with a good drenching with a fine mist spray of water.
• Mulch over the seed with straw or Seed Accelerator®, which will help preserve moisture and protect the seed bed from run-off from heavy rains.
• All lawns should be fertilized in the fall. All new lawns should be given a lawn food formulated as a starter fertilizer, or an organic/natural lawn fertilizer such as Milorganite®, Espoma® Organic Lawn Food, or Corn Gluten. These products will insure that no damage to young, tender grasses will occur from fertilizers specifically made for mature lawns.
The payoff will be next spring, when the lawn to seeded in the fall will be well-established and ready for the new growing season.
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