Winter Rye Grass Overseeding

Purpose

• Warm-season grass grows throughout the summer, but when cold weather arrives it becomes dormant. Some people don't like having a brown lawn covered for the entire winter, and they overseed with winter rye in order to provide a "replacement lawn" that will stay green throughout the winter. This helps the aesthetic appearance of the lawn through the winter and also provides some fertilizer for the lawn in the spring when the winter rye dies off and is replaced by the regular lawn, which comes out of dormancy and turns green again.

Method

• Plant the winter rye when daytime temperatures are still warm enough that it can germinate and grow, but not so early in the fall that it will compete with your summertime lawn. Cut your lawn short and remove any dead leaves and clippings before sowing the rye. Aerating the soil several weeks prior to distributing the rye seed will help it to grow better. Distribute approximately 10 pounds of winter rye seed for every 1,000 square feet of lawn. Cut the winter rye very short in the early spring in order to encourage it to die out quickly when the warm-weather grass begins to grow again in the spring.

Cautions

• If your winter rye grows too enthusiastically on your lawn, it's possible that it will damage your summer lawn by competing with the warm-season grass for moisture and nutrients in the spring. Stop fertilizing in March to discourage growth and resume fertilizing once the warm-season grass breaks dormancy. Also, rye grass seed may contain some weed seeds, which can introduce weeds into your lawn.