I just learned a little lesson about mulching.
I’d finally gotten around to seeding the ugly 6′ circle of dirt and wood chips where the stump was ground out after a tree was removed from the front yard last fall. I’d raked the worst of the wood chips out, rucked up what was left, seeded, then weed-weaseled it again to kind of dig the seed in a little. And of course watered it.
Thanks to exceptional weather, the rest of the grass was growing so fast I had to rake the clippings for the second week in a row. My mulching mower usually does a fine job, and I almost never have to rake. So I had a bunch of clippings I’d raked up in the front yard. And I had this big circle of dirt with not-yet-germinated grass seed. I needed to get rid of the clippings, and I figured the seeded area could use some extra protection from drying out if I forgot to water. Aha!
I tried to sprinkle the clippings in a thin and uniform layer, but I had a lot of clippings and not a lot of patience, so I ended up with clumps of clippings in many places.
A week or so later, when I started to see baby grass coming up, I noticed it really wasn’t coming up thru the clumps of clipping mulch. Curious, I picked up a clump. A bunch of yellowed, frustrated baby grasses! Oops. I carefully and gently raked up most of the clipping mulch, and lots of baby grasses saw their first sunshine. Maybe misled by how aggressively all the dumb baby maple trees sprout, I’d figured the clippings would present little impediment to the grass seedlings – but not so. Here’s a picture of an admittedly gross clump of clippings and what was underneath in a nearby bare spot I’d seeded at the same time. Fortunately, I think I noticed in time to keep from killing much of my new grass.
The bottom line seems to be that using grass clippings for mulch for grass seeding isn’t a great idea – at least if you’re going to be at all clumpy about it.