The Bird Buffet
Sowing grass seed is a cheap way to start a lawn, but it leaves your garden incredibly vulnerable. To a local flock of pigeons or sparrows, a freshly seeded lawn is essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet. They can decimate an entire lawn's worth of seed in a single afternoon, leaving you with bare patches and weeds.
How to Protect Your Seed
- Netting: The most effective method is to suspend fine garden netting over the entire seeded area, pegged slightly above the soil.
- Reflective Deterrents: Hanging old CDs or reflective foil tape on strings can scare birds away temporarily as they flash in the sun.
- Top Dressing: Raking a very fine layer of topsoil over the seed can hide it from view, though birds will often still scratch the dirt to find it.
The Ultimate Bypass: Instant Turf
If you don't have the time or patience to fight birds for six weeks, skip the seed entirely. By installing premium, farm-grown turf, you get a mature, dense, instant lawn that birds have zero interest in. No nets, no foil, just a perfect garden from day one.