PLANTING AND SEEDING SEASONS : Page 22

Grass seed sown too early in the autumn and not artificially wateredwill generally lie dormant until the fall rains start germination, and,likewise, seed sown too late in the autumn or too early in the spring willlie dormant until the ground warms up sufficiently to start sprouting.The grass seeding season is from the time the ground gets warmenough in the spring until it gets too cold in the autumn to start thegermination process, but this season is as a matter of practice dividedinto two parts by the period in the summer when the ground is too dryto start germination and the weather is so hot as to require constantartificial watering, both to start germination of the seed and to keepthe young plants alive. It is also generally considered wiser not toseed so late in the autumn, in the North, that the young grass plantswill not be well established before freezing weather. These are thefactors which influence the establishment of the lawn seeding seasondates diagrammatically shown on the chart (Plate III). Making lawnsin the South is a process of seeding when adaptable mixtures of north-ern lawn seed are used, and a process of planting roots when the nativeBermuda and St. Augustine grasses are used. Northern grass isseeded in the period from September to January. Italian rye is seededfrom October to January, and native grass roots are planted as shownon the chart in stations 21 and 22.