2015 Lawn thread

[RichB]

civicduty said:

Any advice would be appreciated.

I would plant something, anything!

[dazwalsh]

Just bought a brand new build semi, one of two so not a huge development but they still went down the route of burying all their st and applying a thin veneer of soil. Grass has grown well but its so uneven and all sorts of rocks and st sticking out that I'm considering starting again

Would i be ok to throw a load of topsoil over the top so it's got another 100mm or so then compact and seed? Would the existing grass grow up through or die? Would turf over the fresh soil be better than seed?

[OtherBusiness]

Gave mine the first cut of the season on Monday, grass is looking pretty good now imho. January 2014 it was attacked by leatherjackets and half of it was destroyed. Treated that and had it reseeded April 2014, plus a dose of nematodes in September last year and all seems to be looking good.

Edited by OtherBusiness on Wednesday 8th April 10:10

[Smartboy]

Reading with interest...

I've just moved into a house and the large lawns are not in a good state so decided to do something about it.

I've also just bought and used a scarifier for the first time last weekend. The total lawn area is a smidge under an acre, but made up of around 3 separate lawns. Scarifying (twice, with the second run at 45 degrees to the first) followed by a mow took me from 9 in the morning to 6 in the evening, filling two 1-tonne bags with material!

Have then treated one of the lawns with a feed/weed & mosskiller product to see what happens.
I will undoubtedly have bare-patches where the weeds die off, so overseeding – would I just sprinkle seeds on top and then roll them to ensure contact with the soil followed by a sprinkle with the hose every day for a week?

Not attempting to treat the entire lawn at once.

Is there an easier way of de-compacting? Wiggling a fork every 6 inches over the large area will take me a year!

[OtherBusiness]

dazwalsh said:

Would i be ok to throw a load of topsoil over the top so it's got another 100mm or so then compact and seed? Would the existing grass grow up through or die? Would turf over the fresh soil be better than seed?

I'm no expert but the existing grass would die I imagine if you covered it with the soil? Turf is easier for a quick win, but seeds will be fine too, sowing them now would be good, don't forget to put the sprinkler on them. Green thumb actually did the reseeding of mine and did a great job. They offer it as a service - Lawn Renovation

[OtherBusiness]

Smartboy said:

Is there an easier way of de-compacting? Wiggling a fork every 6 inches over the large area will take me a year!

You can hire "hollow tine aerator" machines which will do the job. Or just use a lawn care company to do that bit?

[Olf]

civicduty said:

As I said earlier I would take some photos so here they are,





The first picture is where the quagmire was all during winter and the second is obviously a fuller picture of the entire garden, that shows I do have something resembling grass just not sure what.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I'd say at least part of the problem is that you are using child's gardening tools. Man the fk up and buy a real rake pity's sake.



I am going extreme. I've dug the back end of my garden up to de-compact and improve drainage and then I'm reseeding with a special miracle grow mix called patch magic - sounds like something Wayne Rooney might have used. I'm about half way through. I'm sieving as I go to remove old grass, moss and larger stones.

Edited by Olf on Wednesday 8th April 17:14

[bazza white]

Work in progress. Trees cut back as they were a pita. Patio up and will be grassed new fence in progress. The grass was going to stay dond but loads of moss and didnt want it looking odd.

[chris_c201]

Looking for a bit of advice....

Had a new lawn installed last year after getting my garden leveled. The grass looks ok but it's clearly not been a great job preparing it as it's pretty bumpy all over.

Would a "firm" be able to do something about this, not sure exactly what would be required but maybe filling with a mix of compost and seed or something? Not looking for a bowling green but would be nice if it didn't look like I was going over cobbles when mowing!

If this is something that a company would do a ball park of costs would be appreciated, area is nigh on 100m2.

Thanks,
Chris

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Rick101 said:

I have a tiny lawn and ashamed to admit I struggle to look after it. The simple advice seemed to be cut little and often. I have a small hand push mower which hardly seems to take anything off. Most cuts miss the collection box so I don't even bother fitting it now as it's such a small area. I rake it afterwards and try and dig any weeds out as soon as they come up.
Other issue is drainage. The left hand side gets totally sodden. Thats also the side shaded by the fence so gets much less light. Yes it's a new build.

Any advice?

Lovely little garden! I like the way you've screened off the shed and stuff at the bottom of the garden. Do you feed your lawn? If not, I strongly recommend you do - that might be all that's wrong with it. If it gets waterlogged, try spiking it using a fork (the technique is "stick it in, wiggle it about and pull it out").

[Guffy]

chris_c201 said:

Looking for a bit of advice....

Had a new lawn installed last year after getting my garden leveled. The grass looks ok but it's clearly not been a great job preparing it as it's pretty bumpy all over.

Would a "firm" be able to do something about this, not sure exactly what would be required but maybe filling with a mix of compost and seed or something? Not looking for a bowling green but would be nice if it didn't look like I was going over cobbles when mowing!

If this is something that a company would do a ball park of costs would be appreciated, area is nigh on 100m2.

Thanks,
Chris

dazwalsh said:

Just bought a brand new build semi, one of two so not a huge development but they still went down the route of burying all their st and applying a thin veneer of soil. Grass has grown well but its so uneven and all sorts of rocks and st sticking out that I'm considering starting again

Would i be ok to throw a load of topsoil over the top so it's got another 100mm or so then compact and seed? Would the existing grass grow up through or die? Would turf over the fresh soil be better than seed?

Me too! New build, 2-years old, new turf looked lush and level for a year, now it's got more craters than the moon, plus i'm waging a war against some stringy, pervasive weed thats growing like its on steroids.

Rip it up and re-turf or top soil in the craters and re-seed and de-weed?

[Guffy]

Rick101 said:

I have a tiny lawn and ashamed to admit I struggle to look after it. The simple advice seemed to be cut little and often. I have a small hand push mower which hardly seems to take anything off. Most cuts miss the collection box so I don't even bother fitting it now as it's such a small area. I rake it afterwards and try and dig any weeds out as soon as they come up.
Other issue is drainage. The left hand side gets totally sodden. Thats also the side shaded by the fence so gets much less light. Yes it's a new build.

Any advice?

This looks like a good candidate for artificial grass and it's small enough to be a DIY project. There's plenty of Youtube vids on how to do it too.

The hardcore underneath the artificial grass should also help with drainage.

Edited by Guffy on Thursday 9th April 07:58

[popeyewhite]

Guffy said:

Rip it up and re-turf or top soil in the craters and re-seed and de-weed?

Rip it up, get rid of any rubble you find down to at least 2'. If the soil gets very very wet then place some drainage (pipes or tiles) in to help take the water away. Then good quality mixed soil and seed.

Ultimately you need to decide whether your garden is too wet to save or not. You could be just papering over the cracks for a few years..or not. The only way to be sure is to dig it up, but this is obviously fairly labour intensive.

[Andehh]

Also interested in this thread first cut 2 days ago....now I'm not sure whether to scarify it tonight or weed & feed it tonight?

Rain over the weekend forecast, but what order should I do it in? And how long to leave between each?

Cheers

[popeyewhite]

Andehh said:

Also interested in this thread first cut 2 days ago....now I'm not sure whether to scarify it tonight or weed & feed it tonight?

Rain over the weekend forecast, but what order should I do it in? And how long to leave between each?

Cheers

If you have lots of weeds and moss scarifying won't get rid of it all - you should kill it first, then scarify. The B+Q Evergreen 4-in-1 is good enough. If your lawn's pretty weed/moss free a quick scarify and then feed before the rain would be good.

[mikees]

My soon to be lawn. Not sure it will be this good with me doing it!

[markbigears]

that looks like a painting Mike!

[Willeh85]

Nice lawn mike.

I've done some aeration of my lawn today ready for seed tomorrow after I've finished applying a top dressing.

Let me tell you it was forking hard work. Nearly 5 hours it took with a couple of breaks here and there which includes the top dressing work (not shown). I would have finished it today but I've got to take my hound to the vet for his vaccinations.

[Rick101]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

Lovely little garden! I like the way you've screened off the shed and stuff at the bottom of the garden. Do you feed your lawn? If not, I strongly recommend you do - that might be all that's wrong with it. If it gets waterlogged, try spiking it using a fork (the technique is "stick it in, wiggle it about and pull it out").

Thank you, i'll give that a try first, both feed and spike.

Guffy said:

This looks like a good candidate for artificial grass and it's small enough to be a DIY project. There's plenty of Youtube vids on how to do it too.

The hardcore underneath the artificial grass should also help with drainage.

Thank you. I'll consider artificial as a final option.

[Patch1875]

Willeh85 said:

Nice lawn mike.

I've done some aeration of my lawn today ready for seed tomorrow after I've finished applying a top dressing.

Let me tell you it was forking hard work. Nearly 5 hours it took with a couple of breaks here and there which includes the top dressing work (not shown). I would have finished it today but I've got to take my hound to the vet for his vaccinations.

Well done! But you would have been better hiring a hollow tine aerator would have took 15 mins.