The Labor Day holiday is the date used to promote seeding of lawns in the Piedmont area of both North and South Carolina.

The typical grass planted is either Tall Fescue or Bluegrass and sometimes they are mixed together. Tall Fescue is the predominant turfgrass planted in lawns and pastures in Polk County.

Most grasses need a minimum of five hours of full sun each day. All turfgrasses, except centipede, prefer a soil that has a pH level around 6.5. To obtain that that soil pH, most homeowners in the Polk County area have to add some lime to their lawn to increase the pH level in the naturally acidic soils.

As many are aware, area native soils are composed of heavy, tight red clay. Therefore, sowing grass seed on top of the ground, with no soil preparation, is generally unsuccessful. Some light tilling, aeration or vigorous raking with a garden rake is critical to the success of a lawn. One can see after the seasons of drought in the past that no soil prep is equal to dead grass by early August.