We all love the surroundings to our home to look beautiful and that certainly cannot be achieved if there’s a huge hole in the garden. The bad thing about leaving tree stumps on your land is that they suck the nitrogen content from the soil. The reason why homeowners usually remove the trees on their land is to protect their house against any possible falling limb damage and save the time and money to raking leaves chores.

The stump from the end cutting process will actually remain a void in the middle of the lawns with sawdust and wood chips. Homeowners will experience difficulty to grow grass in the area near the tree stump as the microbes will eat the dead wood, which is still in the ground. If you want to solve this problem, here are the steps on how to plant grass where a tree stump was.

You will need:

1. High-nitrogen fertilizer
2. lawn roller
3. shovel
4. rake
5. tiller
6. rake
7. grass seed
8. top soil (optional)

Grass

Steps:

1. First, remove any wood chips and debris where the tree stump is located by using a rake. Use a shovel to turn the top about few inches and pick out any visible woods. If there’s any hole in the ground caused by the stump’s deterioration, fill it up with new top soil.
2. You should then till the area where the tree stump was located but do not till if the stump is still a solid mass, which is a few inches below the surface of the soil. Instead, you can use a shovel to turn the available soil.
3. Follow this by applying to the soil’s surface some slow-release grass fertilizer. Use the rake again to smooth out and to mix the fertilizer and the soil.
4. After that, you should take your choice of grass seed and sprinkle them over the bare soil. Then, cover the seeds with ¼ inch of soil by raking the area. Before moistening the soil with water, use a lawn roller to smooth out the area. Keep moistening the soil once in the morning and in the afternoon until the grass seeds sprouts.
5. After 60 days, apply a high-nitrogen fertilizer when the grass is getting thicker. You should continue to add the high-nitrogen fertilizer monthly to increase the wood decomposition process in the ground. This step will also help to maintain suitable nitrogen levels in the grass.
6. You should water the grass vigorously about one to two times a week or when the plants start to look wilted. If the grass look dried and brown, water them frequently and fertilize more if the grass look yellow.
7. By following these instructions, you should be able to make that empty spot in the garden with something more beautiful.

Image Credit:

Flickr CC

Additional Reading:

The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes