• Overview

  • In this video, This Old House landscape contractor Roger Cook shows how to breathe new life into an old, tired lawn.

    Steps:
    1. Use power rake to de-thatch the lawn and remove old, dead grass.
    2. Fill slice seeder with grass seed.
    3. Run the seeder back and forth across the lawn to plant the seed into the ground.
    4. After first pass, run the seeder around the perimeter of the lawn, and any other areas missed during the initial pass.
    5. Next, run the seeder across the entire lawn again, but this time, make perpendicular passes to the initial pass to ensure 100 percent coverage.
    6. Apply starter fertilizer to lawn using a walk-behind broadcast spreader.
    7. Thoroughly water the lawn.
    • 4 to 6 hours, for average-size lawn
    • about $60 to $100, for average-size lawn
    • Tools
    • Shopping List
    • Difficulty: Easy to moderate
      the repair itself is rather straightforward, but it does require a lot of walking back and forth across the yard
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    Video Directory

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      Tools List

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      • power rake
        Gas-powered power rake, used to prep the lawn for seeding
      • slice seeder
        Slice seeder, used to plant grass seed
      • walk-behind spreader
        Walk-behind broadcast spreader, for spreading fertilizer

      Shopping List

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      1. Grass seed, used to create new lawn

      2. Starter fertilizer, used to amend the soil