2015 Lawn thread

[moles]

Jagnet thanks I think as you said may as well give it a go for the ornamental lawn we have no kids and pets and only have garden parties once or twice a year, am looking at cylinder mowers that have removable cassettes with loads of accessories like scarifiers, brushes, aerators has anyone got one of these are they worth it or just go for a plain cylinder mower with roller?, any makes to go for or avoid?.

https://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/category/casset...

[jagnet]

Having started to run out of shed space I recently picked up a Dennis FT that uses just such a cassette system, so I am somewhat biased in favour of it.

Whilst the de-thatcher isn't going to be man enough for cricket square end of season renovations, it'll be fine for domestic lawn maintenance. The verticut cassette looks fairly decent.

On the other hand an older mower can be picked up on ebay for relatively little these days and the price difference can hire many days worth of scarifiers etc. Something like an old Ransomes Marquis is a great mower that still sees stirling service on cricket pitches up and down the country, and the ones with the old Villiers/BSA F12 sloper engine sound

I do think that versus older mowers that were often substantially over engineered the modern ones aren't built to last in the same way, but enough to notice in most domestic situations? Probably not.

I would also pay a visit to one or two local lawnmower vendors and ask their advice. If they're going to be maintaining your mower for you it's worth building up a rapport with them.

[jagnet]

wjwren said:

whats the best way to over seed this? I seeded a large patch couple weeks ago and for some reason this patch hasnt germinated.

There can be a variety of reasons why some patches might not germinate, from being a little compacted to finding that a bit of heavy rain washed the seeds off before they took. I'd just break up the surface a bit, decompact with a fork and seed it again and see how it goes.

wjwren said:

also in the back garden I have this rough compacted ground that seems to be sandy soil due to the amount of tree's we have. Should i dig this ground up or just cut the grass short and seed then small amount of soil on top?

Try decompacting with a garden fork first - push it in and wiggle back and forth. It's surprising how effective it is at aerating. I'd then brush a sand/compost top dressing over the area and into the holes after heavily raking to break up the surface soil a little. Then overseed, treading the area or running a roller over it to ensure good seed to soil contact.

Keep on top of aerating in the future and if shaded by trees allow it to grow a little longer to make the best use of limited light and deter moss.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

markbigears said:

David, that seems quite extreme! Reading your posts you obviously know your apples, but do you really have the time, resources and money to keep an ornamental looking it's best?.

That's a very valid question, and I don't know the answer. I think there's only one way to find out! As jagnet says, I can always overseed with a rye mix later to turn it into a slightly more utilitarian lawn if I need to.

Also, I only have a rotary mower so it's never going to look like a 'proper' ornamental lawn. But I've been overseeding with this ornamental mix for a few years and there are some patches where I can really see the quality of grass that has resulted, even though I'm mowing it much taller than you would for a proper ornamental lawn.

Thanks for your advice and reassurance, jagnet, I'll go with a proper seed fertiliser and won't bother rotavating. Can't wait to get cracking on it now that I've made the decision, but we want to enjoy some green for another month before turning it yellow!


Edited to add: Just wondering whether there's a way of avoiding missing bits when I glyphosate. If I add a bottle of food colour to the mix, will that work do your reckon?

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Wednesday 15th July 06:31

[jagnet]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

Edited to add: Just wondering whether there's a way of avoiding missing bits when I glyphosate. If I add a bottle of food colour to the mix, will that work do your reckon?

Worth doing if only for the opportunity to colour it red whilst playing The Red Weed from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. That should get the neighbours' talking

Failing that, marking it out in metre wide strips with twine should be enough to avoid missing any strips

[Cactussed]

Is there anyone in this group that works in the industry (eg, as a greenkeeper or similar?)

[R8VXF]

moles said:

Jagnet thanks I think as you said may as well give it a go for the ornamental lawn we have no kids and pets and only have garden parties once or twice a year, am looking at cylinder mowers that have removable cassettes with loads of accessories like scarifiers, brushes, aerators has anyone got one of these are they worth it or just go for a plain cylinder mower with roller?, any makes to go for or avoid?.

https://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/category/casset...

I have the Allett Classic 14 and have the scarifier catridge. Works really well imo. If you want to use the other cartridges then you will need the Kensington. Seems to be very well built and gives a very nice cut. I do need to look at somehow bodging some side rollers for the front for when the grass gets too long though.

If you are going from a rotary to a cylinder, you will find that the grass grows a lot quicker due to the cleaner cut, but I find that it cuts so much quicker that I still save time cutting 3x a week than once a week with the old flymo.

[Cactussed]

On that point, I fitted some side rollers to my old Atco 24 as the front roller was just flattening the grass, but sadly my lawn is so uneven that it kept bending the front supports.

What I really need is some front wheels that have a support bar across the middle.
Any thoughts on where I might find one other than making it myself?

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Cactussed said:

Is there anyone in this group that works in the industry (eg, as a greenkeeper or similar?)

Patch1875 runs a lawn care company:

Patch1875 said:

I have a lawn care company (in East Lothian ;-) ) will help with any advice when I can.

It would also be really interesting if there's anyone who works in the professional football / rugby / cricket / golf arena.

[markbigears]

I was at Wimbledon for the tennis and its interesting that they use a 100% rye grass mix.
They also use pop up sprinklers (rainbird?), thats next on my list for installation.

[moles]

What length are you cutting it at the minute?, also between my lawn and shed I have 2m of stones/chippings to cross to put the mower away are cylinder mowers ok over chippings or will it wreck the roller/blade crossing over it when getting the mower out?. (Obviously it will be off at the time)

R8VXF said:

have the Allett Classic 14 and have the scarifier catridge. Works really well imo. If you want to use the other cartridges then you will need the Kensington. Seems to be very well built and gives a very nice cut. I do need to look at somehow bodging some side rollers for the front for when the grass gets too long though.

If you are going from a rotary to a cylinder, you will find that the grass grows a lot quicker due to the cleaner cut, but I find that it cuts so much quicker that I still save time cutting 3x a week than once a week with the old flymo.

[RichB]

moles said:

What length are you cutting it at the minute?, also between my lawn and shed I have 2m of stones/chippings to cross to put the mower away are cylinder mowers ok over chippings or will it wreck the roller/blade crossing over it when getting the mower out?. (Obviously it will be off at the time)

No problem, just raise the height a notch or two before you run it over the stone. Easy...

[R8VXF]

moles said:

What length are you cutting it at the minute?, also between my lawn and shed I have 2m of stones/chippings to cross to put the mower away are cylinder mowers ok over chippings or will it wreck the roller/blade crossing over it when getting the mower out?. (Obviously it will be off at the time)

R8VXF said:

have the Allett Classic 14 and have the scarifier catridge. Works really well imo. If you want to use the other cartridges then you will need the Kensington. Seems to be very well built and gives a very nice cut. I do need to look at somehow bodging some side rollers for the front for when the grass gets too long though.

If you are going from a rotary to a cylinder, you will find that the grass grows a lot quicker due to the cleaner cut, but I find that it cuts so much quicker that I still save time cutting 3x a week than once a week with the old flymo.

Currently cutting at length 4 of 5.... (5 being the longest)

Just roll it on the back roller over the gravel, it should be fine

[Cyder]

Lawn experts of PH, I'd appreciate you wisdom please.

My lawn was laid around March this year from turf on a clay soil.

It's looking a bit ropey and I'm not sure how to improve it, some law care advice would be appreciated.



Looks a bit brown



Nearly a weeks growth since the last cut.



An idea of the length and how it looks underneath.

[moles]

Looks too long and maybe too dry looks a bit "thatchy". Is greener around the edges presumably where it's more shaded by the fence?.

[Cyder]

It was allowed to grow quite long by the developer who then cut it back when we moved in so the underlying grass is indeed quite thatchy, the last few weeks I've cut it slightly shorter each time to try to cut the thicker brown bits away and encourage green growth but I'm not sure if im doing it right.

Was planning to cut again tomorrow slightly shorter.

[moles]

Might be that the soil is crap underneath the turf which is normally the case on new estates, I would keep cutting it gradually shorter and keep it watered

[Cyder]

It's quite heavy clay under the top soil (ex brick making area) if we don't have any rain tomorrow I'll get the sprinkler out after giving it a cut and see what effect it has. This blasted lawn could become an obsession!

[R8VXF]

Cyder said:

It's quite heavy clay under the top soil (ex brick making area) if we don't have any rain tomorrow I'll get the sprinkler out after giving it a cut and see what effect it has. This blasted lawn could become an obsession!

Give it a good hour of water (in each area if the sprinkler does not cover the whole garden) every 3 days. Keep the cutting height as is for now, plus maybe some lawn feed to get some more green action going.

[jagnet]

Cyder said:

It was allowed to grow quite long by the developer who then cut it back when we moved in so the underlying grass is indeed quite thatchy, the last few weeks I've cut it slightly shorter each time to try to cut the thicker brown bits away and encourage green growth but I'm not sure if im doing it right.

Was planning to cut again tomorrow slightly shorter.

Imho you're on the right track. Because it was allowed to grow so long and then cut right back, much of the brown that you're seeing is the tough basal leaf sheaths that would ordinarily be far less visible. It also explains why the grass coverage is quite thin.

The new growth looks nice and healthy and the ground doesn't look dry. I'd give the lawn a rake before you next cut it to remove some of the debris.

It will eventually sort itself out, but you can help speed things up and introduce some finer grasses next month. I'd keep lowering the cutting height as you are doing, then in August, provided we're not in the middle of a heat wave, scalp it by cutting as low as you can (the grass will recover from this), scarify or rake heavily to remove all the thatch and break up the soil surface, then overseed heavily (at new lawn rates) with some Lawnsmith classic lawn seed which is a nice blend of dwarf perennial rye, fescues and browntop bent.