Lawn Care Thread

[RichB]

Bonefish Blues said:

paulrockliffe said:

it's all just a result of the extra nutrients?

This

Exactly, just think how emaciated pot plants would look if they lived in the same tired compost and you never fed them.

[Bonefish Blues]

Grass is particularly bad at making its own, too.

That's why lawns/lawn-alikes aren't typically seen in nature except perhaps on salt marshes and the like, where there's both big nutrient input and mowing from animals and tide.

[paulrockliffe]

RichB said:

Bonefish Blues said:

paulrockliffe said:

it's all just a result of the extra nutrients?

This

Exactly, just think how emaciated pot plants would look if they lived in the same tired compost and you never fed them.

OK, that's good to know. The difference seems almost artificial, so I wondered if it was.

[Patch1875]

yellowbentines said:

This year my lawn (new build estate, turf thrown on top of rubble and clay soil) looks the best it ever has - all with frequent cutting once weekly with a decent petrol rotary with a sharp blade.

In contrast my neighbour pays for treatments by greenthumb and mows every 2-3 weeks if lucky with a rotten old electric mower, his lawn looks awful!

I do lawn treatments similar to green thumb people make the mistake that if it gets treated a few times a year it takes care of itself, it doesn't you have to put the effort in regular cutting (not scalped) and watering when required.

[markbigears]

I think someone posted this a few pages back, but Miracle grow lawn food, can be had at various places for £4, is my favourite lawn product. Greens up the grass a treat and bou does it make the grass grow!

[Cactussed]

Well, to update.

I came back from holiday last night and ran the ATCO over the front lawn, followed by the scarifyer. Many times. And SO MUCH dead brown stuff came out of the lawn! Its only a 6x6m patch of grass and it filled a green bin. the lawn now looks utterly awful but apparently this is OK / normal?

Also received my bag of Mo Bacter, so going to hit the lawn with that tonight, then water and wait. Hollow Tine to follow in the coming weeks, followed by a light sand top dress.

[JimM169]

Cactussed said:

Well, to update.

I came back from holiday last night and ran the ATCO over the front lawn, followed by the scarifyer. Many times. And SO MUCH dead brown stuff came out of the lawn! Its only a 6x6m patch of grass and it filled a green bin. the lawn now looks utterly awful but apparently this is OK / normal?

Also received my bag of Mo Bacter, so going to hit the lawn with that tonight, then water and wait. Hollow Tine to follow in the coming weeks, followed by a light sand top dress.

Well thanks for that, I'm planning on doing ours this weekend but we've got 800sqm so sounds like I'll be filling a skip!!! Only got a little electric scarifier from Screwfix so will probably takes hours as well

[Cactussed]

Our back lawn is about 1000 sqm, so I'm weighing options here as well. The front is tiny in comparison.
I think the best option is going to be to construct a couple of compost containers and then use them to dispose of the thatch and moss. Otherwise it will literally take a skip.

Also, I'd hire a petrol machine if you can. It will take you ages with the electric one as you need to make severall passes (at least, I did).

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

My lawn is about 200 sq m, and I filled a large wheelie bin 6 times. Mind you, I think I was being pretty aggressive and I've ended up with significant bare patches. Fortunately the seed has germinated quite well and I'm hoping it's going to end up looking alright. The few weeks after scarifying are always filled with self-doubt: did I overdo it?!

One thing I'm sure of: the coarse grasses that infest my lawn do not cope well with scarification, which is a good thing. I'm hoping that the bare patches I've now got are the bits that were dominated by Yorkshire Fog.

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Thursday 4th September 12:35

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Sorry for the double-post, but I'd appreciate some advice.

I've just received a bag of Scotts Lawn Builder Autumn lawn feed with the intention of applying it this weekend. The Scotts fertilisers are my product of choice for feeding the lawn.

But I notice that the instructions say not to apply until six weeks after seeding. This seems odd and excessively cautious to me, given that this is a slow-release fertiliser and boasts that it doesn't cause scorch.

My suspicion is that they've unified the instructions to make them the same across the product range, which includes products with weedkiller and moss killer - and I can fully understand why those products shouldn't be applied to recently germinated grass. I suspect they've left this constraint in the instructions simply to keep the instructions consistent, even though it's not necessary for the fertiliser-only product.

To be clear: the product I've bought is just a fertiliser; it doesn't contain any weedkiller or moss treatment.

Do you reckon I'm safe to ignore it, and apply onto my newly germinated grass?


Edited to add: Actually, thinking about it, I did apply a Summer feed only a couple of weeks before scarifying a fortnight ago, so that's only about 4 weeks ago in total. It's probably a bit soon to re-feed anyway, so I guess I'll leave it until nearer the end of September.

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Friday 5th September 08:48

[Cactussed]

I can't answer specifically as I am fairly clueless, but I've just scarified the bejesus out of the lawn then last night threw down a bunch of Mo Bacter and new grass seed, so am going to hit it with the sprinkler for the next little while and see what happens.

Fingers crossed.

Interstingly, my neightbour leaned over the fence and confirmed one of my long time suspicions. He said that watering, fertilising and laying new seed then covering with clear plastic really speeds up the germination process, very hand for patch repairs (obviously less so for large areas) but evidently acts like a mini greenhouse, and also stops the birds eating all the seeds...

Just a thought.

Will let you know how the lawn looks in due course.

[Granville]

Our lawn is about 80sq meter and we filled two brown bins and the massive composter bin with the stuff we got out of the lawn after scarifying it.

And yes it looked truly awful after, but a couple of mows and a week later and it was well on the way to recovery.

We did ours in July, it now looks fantastic, lovely deep green and very lush and healthy. Only thing is, having done an extra feed on it, I'm having to mow twice a week at the moment, but it does look really good when mown and stripes on it

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Granville said:

We did ours in July

That's brave - the recurring advice that I've read is that mid-summer is a bad time to scarify. Sounds like you got away with it and it worked out fine this year, perhaps because this summer wasn't a really hot one and the grass continued growing vigorously, and also because the weather went distinctly cooler in August which has helped your lawn's recovery.

I've decided to be flexible in future years when deciding when to scarify. This year I scarified on the August bank holiday (which this year was about a week before the end of August), which in itself is quite early - but hopefully I've got away with it because growing conditions were so good in the first part of August. Time will tell! But if we get a hotter/drier July and August next year then I'll postpone scarifying until at least mid-September.

[James_P]

god I love messing around with my lawn

Started with this 3" high moss carpet




Then scarified the death out of it, would have filled a few skips but managed to burn most of it, then scalped the lawn pretty much with a few mows.



Hired a petrol aerator, bought bout 2 bulk bags of top dressing and a lot of grass seed, and ended up with this last summer which was pretty chuffed about.

Went from this


To this by the end of the summer



Also put in a pop up irrigation system whilst I had the chance

Towards the end of last summer the weeds got hold, mainly daisy and buttercups which I think was due to the lawn being quite bare for some time. So managed to kill these off with some evolve selective weedkiller this year and I have my new scarifier drum and a bulk bag of top dressing + grass seeds to go down this weekend

[Cactussed]

How hard / expensive was the popup irrigation system to do?

[James_P]

Easy to install, its mdpe pipe fittings and joints. which goes back to a manifold with solenoids operated by a controller. My lawn is around 30*20m and I used 5 long distance rainbird sprinklers one in each corner and a central one.

My setup uses a 500lt water butt in the garage with the irrigation pump. This is fed off the mains with a simple ballcock and float valve. The lawn is split into 3 zones front, middle and back with a 10 minute gap in between the zones coming on which gives time for the water butt to fill up.

I got all my gear from easywatering who helped me design the system after giving them info and a diagram.. This is the pump I use http://www.easywatering.co.uk/acatalog/DAB_Divertr... which is the most expensive bit of kit. All the pipe/sprinklers can to about 600, pump I got cheaper somewhere else

[Patch1875]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

Granville said:

We did ours in July

That's brave - the recurring advice that I've read is that mid-summer is a bad time to scarify. Sounds like you got away with it and it worked out fine this year, perhaps because this summer wasn't a really hot one and the grass continued growing vigorously, and also because the weather went distinctly cooler in August which has helped your lawn's recovery.

I've decided to be flexible in future years when deciding when to scarify. This year I scarified on the August bank holiday (which this year was about a week before the end of August), which in itself is quite early - but hopefully I've got away with it because growing conditions were so good in the first part of August. Time will tell! But if we get a hotter/drier July and August next year then I'll postpone scarifying until at least mid-September.

Spring and autumn are the times to scarify basically either at the beginning or the end of the growing season.

I tend to carry out most of mine in the early spring.

[Granville]

TBH, the folk before us weren't gardeners and the lawn was mainly thatch, moss and weeds. I love my gardening and now the boarders are established the lawn (what grass there was) was the next on the hit list.

I think it's given a massive sigh of relief that someone tackled the issue and gave it some breathing space and evicted all the crap out of it. I did also water it most evenings and really cared for it after I scarified so I didn't kill it off.

I looks fabulous now, despite having to mow it two or three times a week. Really pleased with it.

[Dr Murdoch]

Sorry if I've missed it chaps, but what order should I be doing things in at this time of year, is it:-

Scarify
Airate
Autumn feed
Over seed
lawn dressing (mix of sand and top soil)

[Seti]

Hi.

Does anyone have any tips for getting rid of worm casts? They seem to be taking over.

Thanks