You may be considering throwing your grass seeds in your backyard, hoping they’ll grow into a beautiful lawn of grass without any effort on your part.
That’s the easy way to go, but do grass seeds need to be buried, anyway?
In short, the answer to that question is yes, grass seeds should be buried if you don’t want them wasted or eaten by birds. Keep reading to learn more about what factors to consider your specific situation.
Will Grass Seeds Grow Without Getting Covered?
If you scatter grass seeds directly on top of the soil without any cover or mulch, some seeds will germinate, and a lot will not. The reason is because 2 things need to happen to grow a grass lawn:
First, get the right amount of moisture for germination – this is why you want to cover your seeds with topsoil.
For a second time, you will want it to be warm enough for germination to happen.
Germination is the act of the seeds sprouting to become mature grass.
It Takes Time: This can take days or weeks. This is dependent on the warmth and moisture of the soil.
Benefits of Burying Grass Seeds
Here are some of the perks of covering your grass seeds with soil:
- Improves general moisture retention
- Protects seeds from being eaten by birds
- Has holding characteristics that will maintain seeds in their proper position and prevent soil erosion
- Protects seeds from wilting because of sun exposure
- Increases rooting speed
Are You Planning a New Lawn, or Is It Just a Turn Renovation?
Whether you should bury your grass seeds or not depends on if you are establishing a new lawn or interseeding, or repairing, an existing lawn.
If you are wanting to see the first few square inches of grass, then by all means, bury the grass seeds, or else, most of them will just be a buffet for the birds.
If you are simply renovating your turf, then it is a bit different. You are simply going to seed specific areas of your lawn, and the existing grass surrounding the new seed will provide overhead cover. In that case, you may not want to bury the new seeds in the grass.
Still, you may want to bury them just in case. Your seeds should not be exposed in all circumstances (unless you want them to germinate properly).
And if you are seeding bald spots in your existing turf, make sure to rake it up!
How to Rake Your Grass Seeds?
The easiest tool for raking your grass seeds would just be a normal, everyday rake that you probably have lying around somewhere in your shed, basement or garage.
If you don’t have a rake, you could use a heavy, outdoor doormat or even a wood board and push them into the ground. A steel mat would work too.
Just make sure you’re not accidentally pushing the seed out of position after you’re using the tool with this method.
How Deep Should Grass Seeds Be Buried?
In general, you want to bury the grass seeds with 1/4-1/2 ideal inch deep.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that a deeper bury will be just as well for your grass seeds.
Burying to deep may actually preclude the seedlings from making it out of the soil during germination.
Inversely, burying shallow would be as equally useless, as NOT burying them at all.
When it comes to spreading them, you may want to think about using a mechanical spreader. There are many different types of spreaders you could use to suite your needs, and the size of your lawn, such as rotary spreaders and drop spreaders.
A rotary spreader is the best type for larger lawns, but it doesn’t spread quite so nice and precise like a drop spreader is capable of doing.
A drop spreader will give you more precise spacing since it opens up and drops the seed while you walk, with your spreaders distance, but covering a lot of lawn or garden with one of these could be a lot of work.
How Long Does Grass Seed Germination Take?
Grass seeds take about 2 to 4 weeks to germinate, assuming you have put them deep enough into the soil.
Should you also keep in mind that your watering method could hinder germination.
Too much watering might wash the seeds away and out of position, so less is really more when watering.
However, if you put the seeds on top of the soil, the seeds will not germinate properly due to washing away.
Water Your Grass Seeds Correctly
It’s important to keep the seeds and seedlings at a healthy moisture level so that they grow into a new lawn.
You probably don’t have a lab to measure how moist the soil is, so just follow a few easy guidelines to get as close as possible to the ideal watering of the seeds.
In most cases at first, you will want to lightly water the seed two to three times a day, ideally, once in the morning and/or noon.
If you notice puddling, turn off the hose.
Then, once the seedlings start growing after two or three weeks, rather than watering every day, you will want to give them a heavier watering.
For the seedlings only water 1-time or 2-times a day for approximately the same duration as before, as you keep each watering, releases a lot more water.
Lastly, once your lawn is growing tall you will want to reduce the amount of watering your lawn receives over time.
Final Words
Do grass seeds need to be buried? A good person would say yes unless you would like to waste some hard earned money and feed the birds.
Burying the seeds will allow them to soak up more water and will cause them to germinate quicker than if the seeds are left on top of the soil.
Also, the soil provides a good place for the seedlings to grow roots.
There are certain instances when burying the seeds is not a must but we still recommend burying the seeds, for there is no reason not to.
In most cases, the time and effort to bury the seeds is well worth it and should be done.
However, if you have a large expanse of grass and only want to fill a couple bald spots with grass seeds, it would be reasonable to leave the seeds on top of the soil and save yourself some time and effort.