| By :
Stephen Daniels
If you are looking into the prospect of planting a new lawn, or refurbishing your existing one, chances are you have heard about a somewhat new process called hydro-seeding. Hydro-seeding your lawn differs from the old tried-and-true lawn-creation methods - such as simply laying down a lot of sod and hoping for the best - in some pretty compelling ways. And there are many reasons that you might want to hire a specialist to start your lawn in this new and simple way. In some instances, this is something local landscaping services can even provide. Lawns that are hydro-seeded/hydro-mulched have the advantage of germinating and growing in the native soil. For this reason, hydro-seeded lawns have a higher success rate than those with sod. If raked properly prior to spraying, the lawn also has a smoother appearance and texture. Hydro-seeding is in the same price range as traditional dry-seeding methods, and the process is really quite simple. Your landscape contractor simply comes to your house to test out the soil type and ground conditions and chooses the combination of grass seeds that will work best for your lawn. Then, after preparing the soil, he or she will spray a mixture of water, fiber, seed, fertilizer and tackifier onto the prepared surface. The mulch acts as an insulator, protecting the seeds from erosion. It provides nutrients as it decomposes, and retains moisture around the seeds to create an ideal environment for seed germination. Depending on the weather and several other factors, this process could result in visible grass in as soon as five to seven days. Hydro-seeding has a significant number of advantages over sod and dry seeding methods. Dry seeding, for instance, usually takes a lot longer to produce new growth. It uses a messy, straw-based mulch that doesn't always stay in place and leaves the lawn in an unattractive state during the germination period. Laying down sod is always a hit-or-miss strategy, as you never know if it is going to "take" or not. It is also much more time consuming, labor intensive and expensive than the other two methods. Hydro-seeding may seem like the kind of thing that a do-it-yourself homeowner might want to tackle, but there are several reasons that it is probably best to hire a professional. For one thing, a pro landscaper can test your soil and ground conditions to determine what seed combination will work best. Secondly, there is some expensive mixing and spraying equipment involved in the process that you'd likely have to rent, which leads us to the last (but not least) reason: Hiring an expert is fairly inexpensive anyway, with savings of approximately 50 percent over the cost of laying sod. So why not just let a pro do the job? As with any other seeding process, your landscaping professional will also be able to show you how to care for your lawn once the initial process is finished, so when it comes to hydro-seeding, hiring a pro is the way to go.
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