Hi Bruce! Welcome to TLF!

Par III looks like your typical 3-way, which shouldn't harm the lawn much if used in the proper mix rate.

It'd be helpful to know the type of grass we're dealing with in this situation. Can you post some pictures of the desired types of grass that might remain?

 

If you have not had *any* water in the past 8 weeks... your lawn may have died.... from a lack of water. It doesn't take much water to keep the crowns alive, but they do need something. I've seen 1/4" of water every 4 weeks bandied about. If you have had zero water on your lawn for 8 weeks.... it's likely suffered from that, rather than the par3 which is pretty much a 3 way and generally a good choice (barring a heavy mix).

 

Thanks for your reply....I've attached a few pictures of the lawn. The first a an area that has come back and seems to be doing well now that we've received some precipitation. The other two show ow grass and has now been taken over by weeds. Not sure in the later two pictures if the grass will return or am I facing a job of ripping the are up and reseeding. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks
Bruce

 

How much water had you received when the pictures were taken?

As an aside, you can see your Par3 application did nothing worth mentioning for the weeds and that is because these products need the weeds to be growing vigorously. I would wait until you get at least a couple of inches of rain on that lawn to see what else is going to come back as some already has. When you get enough water to wake up the lawn, it will also wake up the weeds, which will also allow a Par3 type product to work well (you will have to re apply of course, and hopefully you've only done it once this year as I think Par3 allows a maximum of 2 broadcast applications per year plus spot treatments). If you have already done the maximum number of broadcast apps, spot treat the worst areas and wait until next year to get the rest

I don't know when you guys in Ontario get cold enough weather to stop grass growth... Around here in Winnipeg, it's already too late for seeding as we'll be getting frost in a next couple of weeks. I seeded in the last half of Aug. but it was so hot and dry, I had to water several times a day to keep the seed moist.

Plan on a good aeration, vigorous raking, then spread seed and after seeding, maybe some light peat moss. If you need to fix low spots, now is the time. Plan to do some light watering as no water will result in little germination and all that hard work and money will be wasted. Once the seed gets wet, it cannot dry out before germinating or it will die. Starting seed in the spring *can* be done, but the summer heat and dryness makes it tough to keep the seedlings going, so most opt to seed late summer/early fall.

I have seen mention that if you seed late enough so that the seed sits dormant over the winter, it will germinate in the spring... but it sounds like an iffy proposition to me. I do plan to try it in my front yard as I'll need level it and re-seed anyway next year and I have some seed kicking around. In my case, I don't think 10 cubic yards of soil will be enough for my 2000 square foot front yard, but it's what I'm going with for next year, so seeding is in the cards for me. I got some sod last year (quite expensive), but the cost of watering is even higher than seeding and I wasn't happy with the results.

 

these pictures were taken just a week ago which we've received 2" of rain over the past few weeks. I applied the PAR in June when my lawn was a carpet of grass, it was after I sprayed that we went into a drought period which it didn't rain for 2 months. Now that it has rained these weeds have appeared which I've never had before. The brown patches are dead grass and these are the areas that I wondering will come back next spring along with the areas that are covered with weeds. I do plan to spray again in the next week as we are still in the growing season here in Ontario but I'm not planning to reseed as I'd rather wait till next spring and see what comes back. I'm just not understanding why the lawn died and these type of weeds have appeared, never had this before and we've had dry summers over the years but the lawn has always rebounded.