2015 Lawn thread
Discussion
I hope this is the right lace to ask and I am not hijacking.
There seem to be some very keen 'lawners' on here - I'm turfing a section of the garden in a week or so ( I know it's a bit
late in the season) it will be primarily for the kids to play on - probably with our two dogs in tow. Can anyone recommend a good supplier that will deliver in to Hertfordshire (I'm thinking online) and a good turf that will take some abuse but still look good.
The plot I am doing is NW facing. Only bought it in February so not sure how much sun it gets - it appeared to be quite shady when we moved in and now the sun is on it from about 11am - 6.30pm.
Cheers in advance,
There seem to be some very keen 'lawners' on here - I'm turfing a section of the garden in a week or so ( I know it's a bit
late in the season) it will be primarily for the kids to play on - probably with our two dogs in tow. Can anyone recommend a good supplier that will deliver in to Hertfordshire (I'm thinking online) and a good turf that will take some abuse but still look good.
The plot I am doing is NW facing. Only bought it in February so not sure how much sun it gets - it appeared to be quite shady when we moved in and now the sun is on it from about 11am - 6.30pm.
Cheers in advance,
W12GT said:
Can anyone recommend a good supplier that will deliver in to Hertfordshire (I'm thinking online) and a good turf that will take some abuse but still look good.
I bought Rolawn after much research - they seem to be the dogs danglies. Check their site too it has good info on different types of grass.http://www.rolawn.co.uk/customer-services/stockist...
Well here's my little contribution to the thread.
We purchased a house a couple of years ago, and sadly the previous owners (although fit and well, in their 40's) hadn't done anything more than cut their grass over the 10 years of more they lived there.
When we arrived we where faced with massively overgrown conifer hedges, and very anti social conifer trees that we removed all together. There was an area of land that had been totally left wild over the years, which we had to remove, leaving really bad soil.
The grass has so much moss it was unbelievable, the lawn was also in terrible condition from the clay soil, the unevenness and lack of any care over the years.
The plan was to remove all traces of all conifers, and then plant a fully native hedge. We'd loose a lot of privacy for the next 5-10 years, but out neighbours are great and it's just one of those things you have to do.
The lawn was in such a state, I decided to kill it all, get some soil and compost in and start afresh.
600 native hedge plants, 40 tonnes of soil and20 tonnes of compost later, (and more DOMS that you can imagine) we are now looking like this:
We now have 15 fruit trees, 8 in the nearest part of the photo and 7 new ones at the far end of the garden.
The nearest part is a couple weeks old wildflower meadow, so only grass growing thus far, but a few weeks or months there should be a lot more colour, I've also made a couple of strips of wildflowers road side where there was only bad grass last year.
Where we levelled the garden with compost the grass is a million times better than the old soil.
20 chickens are now doing their best to compost the whole garden, and as a 5-10 year project it should come along nicely.
Chilledbud is online now Report Post
I'll post some of the little garden and a new rear hedge once I get a minute.
We purchased a house a couple of years ago, and sadly the previous owners (although fit and well, in their 40's) hadn't done anything more than cut their grass over the 10 years of more they lived there.
When we arrived we where faced with massively overgrown conifer hedges, and very anti social conifer trees that we removed all together. There was an area of land that had been totally left wild over the years, which we had to remove, leaving really bad soil.
The grass has so much moss it was unbelievable, the lawn was also in terrible condition from the clay soil, the unevenness and lack of any care over the years.
The plan was to remove all traces of all conifers, and then plant a fully native hedge. We'd loose a lot of privacy for the next 5-10 years, but out neighbours are great and it's just one of those things you have to do.
The lawn was in such a state, I decided to kill it all, get some soil and compost in and start afresh.
600 native hedge plants, 40 tonnes of soil and20 tonnes of compost later, (and more DOMS that you can imagine) we are now looking like this:
We now have 15 fruit trees, 8 in the nearest part of the photo and 7 new ones at the far end of the garden.
The nearest part is a couple weeks old wildflower meadow, so only grass growing thus far, but a few weeks or months there should be a lot more colour, I've also made a couple of strips of wildflowers road side where there was only bad grass last year.
Where we levelled the garden with compost the grass is a million times better than the old soil.
20 chickens are now doing their best to compost the whole garden, and as a 5-10 year project it should come along nicely.
Chilledbud is online now Report Post
I'll post some of the little garden and a new rear hedge once I get a minute.
Are you keeping it moist? Given we've had virtually no rain for a fortnight my first thought was it's too dry to germinate quickly. When this warm and dry it needs a light watering twice a day, morning and afternoon. If you haven't been doing this then put down a little more seed and keep on top of keeping it damp. Little and often, don't drown it or wash it away.
Otherwise, is the seed old?
Otherwise, is the seed old?
Chilledbud said:
We now have 15 fruit trees, 8 in the nearest part of the photo and 7 new ones at the far end of the garden.
r44flyer said:
Are you keeping it moist? Given we've had virtually no rain for a fortnight my first thought was it's too dry to germinate quickly. When this warm and dry it needs a light watering twice a day, morning and afternoon. If you haven't been doing this then put down a little more seed and keep on top of keeping it damp. Little and often, don't drown it or wash it away.
Otherwise, is the seed old?
I've had the same problem at mine regards keeping it moist and my seed I've got is about 8 months old. I've not been able to water it every day and we've had very little rain. Otherwise, is the seed old?
About 1/3rd of the seed is starting to show through now, but I'm considering getting another bag of seed, dropping some more down and doing a better job of watering.
hornetrider said:
Chilledbud said:
We now have 15 fruit trees, 8 in the nearest part of the photo and 7 new ones at the far end of the garden.
The previous owners of my house had a path running down the middle of my lawn. A couple of years ago I paid someone to remove the path and turf the area. Unfortunately turfed area where the path was has sunk quite a lot leaving a wide valley in the middle of my garden.
Is there an easy way to raise the level without starting from scratch, or do I need to cut it all out, add topsoil and re-turf?
Is there an easy way to raise the level without starting from scratch, or do I need to cut it all out, add topsoil and re-turf?
Next weekend I will be rotavating and reseeding my back lawn. Over the last couple of years we have hollow tined, spiked, top-soiled and every other method known to man to try and loosen up the soil to no avail. It is so uneven and compacted that this is my only way forward! (Looking forward to playing with a rotavator again though 
)
Last year I also got myself a nice Allett cylinder mower:
Great machine, waaay better than the flymo and has a nice roller on the back. Unfortunately using it is like having a lawn mower rollercoaster when using it due to the unevenness of the lawn, hence the fullscale war this year.
A picture with some stripes from last year:
For rolling the soil and after seeding I guess just use the Allett on it's highest setting and not activate the blades?
)Last year I also got myself a nice Allett cylinder mower:
Great machine, waaay better than the flymo and has a nice roller on the back. Unfortunately using it is like having a lawn mower rollercoaster when using it due to the unevenness of the lawn, hence the fullscale war this year.
A picture with some stripes from last year:
For rolling the soil and after seeding I guess just use the Allett on it's highest setting and not activate the blades?
hornetrider said:
Nice. What are you growing? I've just started our first 'orchard' of 7 trees, 3 apples, 2 pear, cherry and plum. Also got a couple of vines, and will probably get at least two more.
Apples are Discovery, Spartan, James Ariere, Gala and Russet.One Concorde pear, but it's not made any effort this year, so might well be a dead 'un.
Plum Imperial Gauge and Opal.
Cherry, Summer Sun, Stella, Morrello and Cordia.
And Damson Shropshire prune.
We've also three old apple trees that we tided when we got here, no idea of variety but something like a Gala.
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