I will be topdressing, aerating, and overseeding my lawn this spring. What order should this be done and should it all be done in the same day or spread out over several days or weeks?

Can you wait until fall to do all this?

What kind of grass do you have? Is it thin?

What kind of grass are you planning to seed?

Can't wait till fall. Yard is in bad shape. I will be using Rebel fescue. I already have Rebel fescue. I had my whole lawn regraded late last fall. They used red clay and the grass came in very thin, then there were many places that held water so I had to install many french drains, so the yard is a mess.

Oh my. At the risk of sounding mean, you got taken on your landscaping. They did a poor grading job, used poor materials, and left you with thin grass. Now you have to apply lots of band aids to fix it.

At this point I would be inclined to start over by hiring a professional to properly grade your soil and seed it. I think you'll be far ahead of the game.

Rather than using fescue I would go for a mix of two or three of the newer Kentucky bluegrass varieties. KBG will spread and fill in where fescue grasses do not.

I'm not trying to not answer your question. I'm suggesting what I believe is the best solution. If you are still going to go ahead with the topdressing, etc., let me know and I'll have some suggestions for that.

I like to mow my grass very tall and everything I've read on KBG, even the newer varieties are mown at about 2-3 inches. I like my grass mown at 3-4, therefore, I like the fesues. I can't afford to redo the grading and dirt, working w/ 1 acre. So if you have advice on the ordering of the original post I would greatly appreciate it.

I would aerate, topdress, seed, and then roll the seed. best to use a plug type aeration, this will open up the clay, allow the compost topdress to fill some of the holes, then seed into the new topdressing.

How do you keep the birds from eating the seed if you seed after you topdress?

Sorry for the rookie question. I'm new to this as well.

I either lightly rake it in for small areas, for larger areas I have a piece of chainlink fence I use to drag over the area. you could also use straw to both shade and cover the area, just don't make it to thick, just lightly spread around over the area.

I have a large area...hadn't thought about the chain link fence. I have a section that would work perfectly. Thank you for the idea.

If you use the chain link drag, you still need to roll it down to get good contact between the seed and soil.

Regarding mowing height of KBG, I'm asking that to my KBG guru on another forum. I'll get back.

Back to the original question.

Aerate first. If you are going to do it, do it in all directions. Go over it at least nine times in all directions of the compass.

Topdress

Overseed

Roll the seed down with a water roller.