Crabgrass removal and reseed in summer?

[SageDesignLM]

Guys, I am looking for a few suggestions on eliminating large areas of crabgrass throughout an approximate 6000 sq ft lawn and re-establishing turf. I am in central Virginia and obviously summer is not an ideal time to seed new grass and replacing with sod is difficult as well. Anyway, my client wants the crabgrass gone and new turf grass (tall fescue) in its place. Any recommendations on how to accomplish this now with daily temps in the 90's and established turf starting to go dormant for the summer? I appreciate any input you may have. Thanks in advance.

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Could you wait until a couple of months before the first frost and kill it off then reseed it? Or does the customer want something done right now?

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[Von Bobbeh]

Tear out the crab grass and wait to seed? I can't think of any other solution, waiting until fall to seed the newly bare soil. We're landscapers not magicians, costumers should be aware of that! lol. But if they are that impatient no grass may very well be better then crab grass.

**you could spray paint the bare soil with green paint**

[SageDesignLM]

The customer would like new grass now but I agree that waiting until fall and taking out the crabgrass and reseeding is best. I believe that taking it out know and seeding will only allow more crabgrass seed already in the soil to germinate.

Any other thoughts or recommendations for an immediae miracle fix?

[Steve]

If the customer wants an immediate change right now, maybe you could sell them on sod?

[stevef1201]

If you do anything with crabbgrass in the fall you need to remember that the seeds will fall in early fall, late summer and remain dormant untill spring when they will germinate and pop up again. You need to RIGHT NOW, kill off the crabgrass, resod, and then next spring put down a weed inhibitor. You might get by with no crabgrass next year.

Remember if your customer gets crabgrass next year YOU will be the guy who didn't what he was doing and he will tell everyone. However if you get rid of the crabgrass, and it never comes back YOU ARE A GOD, and he will tell a few people.

[Steve]

Keep us posted on what you decide to go with.

[SageDesignLM]

Looks like I will be killing off and cutting out the crabgrass and laying new sod. Adding a temporary sprinkler for a few weeks to help the new sod get established as well. We'll see how it turns out, should be just fine if all goes well. Thanks for everyone's input.

[Steve]

That sounds great! I look forwards to hearing how all this turns out.

Take some pics!