How to Grow Grass in a Wooded Lot

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we are going to talk about how to grow grass in a wooded lot. Now this is very personal for me because on my property I have a lot of wooded areas and my husband really loves our beautiful lawn and he wants more lawn and of course I want more flowers so it is a challenge if you have a wooded lot to find grass or to be able to even grow grass on a wooded lot. My theory is this. If you have an area where weeds are coming up at all with just a little bit of sun coming in it you can get grass to grow and there is a lot of was that you can help your grass to grow too. The first thing you need to do though is to clean up the wooded area so that the grass gets some light and so you can get water in there. Like in this area right here start by getting rid of all the smaller branches. These branches are just some wild woods and nothing has been done to this tree so by gradually clearing all the bottom branches off to this certain height as we have done on this sight you'll find that a lot more of the sun is coming in so we have cut the branches up to probably ten feet tall so just by cutting the branches up a lot more light is coming in and that makes a big difference. So what we had hoped to do with this area is to get some more grass to grow and as you can see there is lots of moss here and pine needles so an easy trick that we have found that works really well is to cover the whole area with two or three inches of compost or potting soil and making sure that none of it covers any of the roots of the tree because you don't want to cover the roots of the trees and around the bases of the trees themselves because you are probably never going to get any grass to grow so make sure you come out at least five, six, seven, feet from the tree and even as far as the drip line where water would fall they say it is hard but I have gotten in a few more feet than that so I would say to add some soil here and grow some perennials that can handle the shade so directly under the trees make sure you have got perennials because you are not going to get grass under the trees but at the border you can put lots of compost down or potting soil and add lots of grass seed in the late Spring or early Fall and the nights are still warmer and that way if you water lots you will find that the grass will grow really well. So you can get grass to grow in a wooded lot just by clearing a few of the branches out and adding some compost, lots of grass seed every Spring and every Fall and watering it really well at least once a week for a couple of hours and you will find that the grass will grow eventually. Now if you have an area that is just deep deep forest and nothing but pine needles and ferns and there is really no light at all I would just give up and grow a beautiful moss garden.