Grasses

[Beekissed]

You could also rotate your grass or contain your chickens to a mobile chicken tractor and control where they forage, so as to not wear out one spot. To rotate, you fence off one side of the yard until it recovers from overgrazing, then switch pastures and repeat when necessary.

As for overseeding your existing grasses, this can get ticklish, as your native perennials and annual grasses are going to thrive more in your particular soil than any introduced species. So, you could conceivably grow the new grass for a season, maybe even two, then the original grasses will dominate anyway, as they do better in your particular growing conditions.

Better just to save yourself the money and time and develop the grasses you have already. If you have any access to composted material or even just fresh grass clippings, cover any bare spots in your grass with a 1/2 -1 in. layer of compost/clippings, fence it off to avoid further stress to the grass, water it well and let nature restore itself.

 

[Xtina]

Interesting...
So if I take the grass clippings from last year out of the compost (whatever's left of them) there will probably be some seeds in there? I know I don't compost correctly, so there's no way there was enough heat to kill those seeds.

Hmmm.

 

[Beekissed]

Not for the seeds in the grass clippings. The clippings are just a nice, moist ground cover that will encourage earth worm activity, which loosens and aerates the packed, dry earth and encourages the natural bacteria and nematodes. This will be a way to regrow your natural, native perennials. There will be dormant seeds in your soil and from the small clumps here and there that still exist. But growing conditions must be optimum if you want to restore a full, thick growth.

You can spread all the grass seeds you want on dry, bare, packed soil and you won't stimulate much growth, if any. Wouldn't hurt to mix some old dog and chicken droppings in with this composted ground cover as well.

 

[Xtina]

Oh ok. Gotcha.