What happens either side of seeding day.
One thing we need from you before, one thing that decides the result after, and a straight answer about which parts of it we can stand behind. None of it is long.
Mark what is under the lawn.
Seeding properly means opening the soil, which is exactly why it works and exactly why a buried sprinkler head is a problem. A few minutes with flags saves a repair.
Flag your sprinkler heads
This is the big one, and it is the only thing we genuinely need from you. Slice seeding cuts furrows into the soil and the AeraSeeder opens it across the whole lawn — neither machine can see a sprinkler head sitting flush in the turf. Mark them and they get worked around. If you need flags, we can send some off beforehand.
Anything else buried and shallow
Invisible dog fence, low-voltage lighting cable, a shallow line someone ran to a shed. If you know roughly where it runs, tell us. We would far rather work around it than find it.
Let us know about pets and gates
Which gate to use, whether a dog is out, anything that decides how the machine gets to the back. It sounds small and it is the difference between a smooth morning and a wasted trip.
There is a window, and it decides everything.
A seed that has taken up water and started to swell has committed. If it dries out at that point, it does not pause and wait for the next rain — it dies, and no amount of watering afterwards brings it back. That is the whole game, and it is why watering matters more here than anything else either of us does.
The window runs until the whole mix is up, not until you see the first green. The ryegrass comes fast and can make it look like the job is done. In a mix that includes bluegrass, a good share of your lawn is still underground at that point. Watering keyed only to the first green is the most common way a seeding fails — and it fails invisibly. The lawn simply comes in thinner than it should have, and nobody connects it to the fortnight earlier.
The day-by-day version — how much, how often, when to stop, when to first mow — is on the new seed care sheet. That is the page to keep on your phone for the month after we leave.
What we stand behind, and what we cannot.
We stand behind our side of it: certified seed of named cultivars rather than a generic bag, the mix chosen for your light and situation rather than whatever is on the truck, seed placed into the soil instead of scattered on top of it, and timing that suits Ottawa rather than the day that happened to be convenient. Those are ours. If any of them is wrong, that is on us.
We do not guarantee that the seed will come up, because the factor that decides it most is the one that happens on the days we are not there. A perfect seeding that is watered badly fails. An ordinary seeding that is watered well succeeds. We can give you the better starting point and clear instructions; after that, it is a fortnight of your attention that makes the difference.
That is not us stepping back from the work. It is the same line we draw on the interlock side, where we warrant the joints we install and not the ground underneath them. A guarantee that covers something we do not control is not a real guarantee — it is a price increase with a story attached.
Questions this raises.
Do you guarantee the seed will come up?
No. Any company that does is either charging you for the risk or planning to argue about it later. We stand behind the things we control — certified named cultivars rather than a generic bag, seed placed into the soil instead of thrown at it, the right mix for your light and your situation, and the correct timing for Ottawa. Watering is the one variable that decides more than all of those put together, and it happens on days we are not there. That is the honest line, and it is the same one we draw on the interlock side.
What if it fails and I did water it?
Then talk to us. A seeding that fails on a lawn that was genuinely kept moist usually has a cause worth finding — a soil problem the seedbed did not fix, grubs working underneath, shade heavier than it looked, a heat wave that beat the schedule. We would rather come and look at it than leave you guessing, and what happens next depends on what we find. What we will not do is promise that outcome in advance.
Can you water it for me?
Not day by day — the window needs attention every day for weeks, and no visiting schedule covers that. If you are away for part of it, say so before we book. Sometimes the right answer is to move the seeding to a date you are home for, and that is a better conversation to have in advance than afterwards.
How long is the critical window?
Until the whole mix is up, not until you see the first green — and those are further apart than people expect. The ryegrass comes fast and looks like success; the bluegrass in some mixes is still coming weeks later. Watering keyed to the first green is the single most common way a seeding fails. The care sheet sets it out day by day.