2016 Lawn thread

[8-P]

Jimmyarm said:

I bought one, only had a little play yesterday but seems to work well although I've never used one before !

it's wet out today so my plans have somewhat been scuppered to do the lot today

Quick question, the lawn has never seen a scarifier judging by the state of it. Should I start off high, let it recover for a few days and go lower or can I just plough straight onto the lowest setting and overseed ?

it's never going to be a bowling green with the dogs running about on it but it's patchy and mossy which is irritating me !

Personally I start high and see how that goes, lets be honest high on your scarifier might be the same as low on mine? Then you can work down. Dont know how big your lawn is but get ready for bags full of moss. Oh and mow pretty low before hand. The results will probably scare you, but a month or so later youll be glad you did it in between the wife telling you youve killed the lawn. Have you thought about overseeding / feeding / weeding etc

Jagnet is really your man on this one but there are loads of what to do vids on youtube and quite a good one on here

http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/projects/vide...

[_bryan_]

Jimmyarm said:

I bought one, only had a little play yesterday but seems to work well although I've never used one before !

it's wet out today so my plans have somewhat been scuppered to do the lot today

Quick question, the lawn has never seen a scarifier judging by the state of it. Should I start off high, let it recover for a few days and go lower or can I just plough straight onto the lowest setting and overseed ?

it's never going to be a bowling green with the dogs running about on it but it's patchy and mossy which is irritating me !

I would slowly reduce the cut first over the next week until you're on the lowest possible setting on the mower. Then scarify down to full depth and immediately overseed to stop any weed grasses germinating.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Start high and reduce the height, with subsequent passes being at a slightly offset angle. I would do two or three passes and see how things are going; bear in mind that Spring scarification should be not quite as deep as you'd go in the autumn. In Autumn you'd keep going until the blades are scuffing into the soil surface, but for now you want to stop short of that point.

[Tony Angelino]

After the collective wisdom of PH has helped me sort out my holiday, my new shoes, my roast ham glaze & my bog that wouldn't flush it's time to ask about my lawn please.

Been in the house 4 years, and the lawn was terrible when we moved in, weeds, moss, threadbare grass, dead patches the lot - so now knowing a great deal about things and having our hands full with plenty of other things we decided to have a company in 3 times a year to sort it out and they did a great job - albeit at a cost. Didn't get them to come back the end of last year as we fancied doing it ourself to save a few quid, lawn is in reasonable condition at the moment but with moss creeping in. We don't expect it to be like a bowling green like some on here as it get's plenty of traffic with family and the dog, but am going to give it some TLC. Reading through the thread am I correct in thinking if I use something like the following in the highest dosage it should kill the moss so I can scarify it and remove it?

http://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/prod/lawn-moss-killer/g...

Is this the correct product? Is it OK for the dog and kids after a few hours? Seems to be a bit vague on that score as far as I can tell.

Pictures of the lawn below, any feedback welcome.

thanks

[Craikeybaby]

You should be able to get away without killing the moss, unless there's loads of it. I just used the scarifier to rip it out and it hasn't come back.

[jagnet]

Tony Angelino said:

Reading through the thread am I correct in thinking if I use something like the following in the highest dosage it should kill the moss so I can scarify it and remove it?

http://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/prod/lawn-moss-killer/g...

Is this the correct product? Is it OK for the dog and kids after a few hours? Seems to be a bit vague on that score as far as I can tell.

Yep, that'll kill off the moss. As for kids and dogs, it's not really dangerous as such in those sorts of concentrations but it does stain like a very stainy thing so you don't really want it being brought indoors onto the carpets, hence keep pets and kids off it until it's dried.

Tony Angelino said:

Pictures of the lawn below, any feedback welcome.

thanks

That's a lovely looking garden but the lawn is very shady and enclosed, so unless you get sowing a shade tolerant seed mix you're always going to be fighting a losing battle against moss. Even then you're going to need to cut on the high side and keep on top of watering and feeding as required to counter the competition from the large trees.

Being a family lawn then it gets an even tougher time of it. The grass, weakened by shade, competition and being cut fairly low and then further damaged by use, isn't going to out compete the opportunistic moss.

All in all it's a tough ask for any lawn.

Recommended shady seed mixes are Lawnsmith's Shadygreen or Germinal's A6 Supreme Shade but as mentioned keep it watered under the big trees during summer, more so with the Shadygreen. The A6 will be a little more drought tolerant. Lawnsmith also have their Staygreen mix which will better cope with droughty conditions than the Shadygreen, but for that size lawn with the mix of shady areas I'd lean towards Shadygreen and keep on top of watering. Personal preference though, so use whichever suits you best.

Both seed mixes will cope well with the wear and tear of a family lawn once established with a reasonable degree of 'self healing' ability.

You'll still likely need to carry out light over seeding every year or two, as well as some measures to control moss especially after winters like the one we've had (mild, wet and with few sunny days) but the moss should become far less of an issue long term.

[Johnnytheboy]

Like an alcoloholic, my lawn has now reached rock bottom and can start to recover.





It's a very heavy clay and was very wet and mossy. Apart from digging the zig zag land drain that explains the stripe across the 2nd image, I have weed/feed/mosskilled it (though it was rained on a bit heavily soon after so it may not have been 100% effective), then scarified it and finally top-dressed it with a mix of 1.5 tonnes of top-dressing and 0.5 tonne of top soil.

Now to seed it with some shade loving seed and watch it (I hope!) recover.

[Patch1875]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

Patch1875 said:

Looks burnt by fertiliser to me, have you put any on?

I'm not convinced. The pattern of dead grass doesn't fit with fertiliser burn - you'd expect the burning to be in long, straight line streaks where it's been over-applied with a spreader, rather than the occasional random blob as can be seen in some parts of that lawn. I don't see how a spreader would give those blobs, or the irregular shape of the main area of dieback.

When I first saw that picture, my thought was "dog, but would it really be that severe?"

In the light of Richyboy's certainty that it's not dogs, that leaves foxes - the effect would be the same, but they must really be having a wee-fest in your garden! I have heard that you can discourage foxes by using male human urine - I'd suggesting peeing into a watering can and watering the borders (not the grass!) near where you think they might be entering the garden.

The other question that occurred to me was why is there some moistening of the patio paving slabs adjacent to the brown patches. Had you just watered the brown patches prior to taking the picture, in an effort to revive the grass? Or had you treated the grass with something else (in which case it would be useful to know what)?

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Monday 2nd May 01:38

I'm still going fertiliser as the rest of the grass looks pretty lush as if it's been fed.

Probably the lack of spreader use is the reason.

Edited by Patch1875 on Monday 2nd May 19:41

[Richyboy]

jagnet said:

Tbh I can't tell a lot from most of those photos. The above suggestion of animal urine could very well be the cause, if not from your own pets then from visiting foxes, etc.

There are some diseases that could cause that, although I think that's less likely but not impossible. Is there any discolouration of the grasses on the outer edge of the patches?

No discolouration. I'm starting to think maybe someone is throwing something in my garden that is attracting wild animals.

[Mario149]

Cheib said:

Mario149 said:

http://www.abbeygardensales.co.uk/sprayers/tow-beh...

That's the one I was thinking of!

Sprayer now assembled and hooked up! Going to go massacre some moss in the next day or so once I've worked out the best way to hook it up to the mower's battery It comes with jump lead type clamps but I'm not sure they'll stay on. It also comes with permanent connectors which I think will fit, but I don't want to be screwing them on/off the battery every time I used it. I've got some motorcycle bullet connectors somewhere, so thinking of cutting the clamps off, fitting the perm connectors to the battery, then cutting the leads to fit the bullet connectors. Has the advantage that if I ever need power from the battery for anything else I can use the same connections.

[Cheib]

Mario149 said:

http://www.abbeygardensales.co.uk/sprayers/tow-beh...

That's the one I was thinking of!

[Cheib]

Mario149 said:

Cheib said:

Mario149 said:

http://www.abbeygardensales.co.uk/sprayers/tow-beh...

That's the one I was thinking of!

Sprayer now assembled and hooked up! Going to go massacre some moss in the next day or so once I've worked out the best way to hook it up to the mower's battery It comes with jump lead type clamps but I'm not sure they'll stay on. It also comes with permanent connectors which I think will fit, but I don't want to be screwing them on/off the battery every time I used it. I've got some motorcycle bullet connectors somewhere, so thinking of cutting the clamps off, fitting the perm connectors to the battery, then cutting the leads to fit the bullet connectors. Has the advantage that if I ever need power from the battery for anything else I can use the same connections.

Nice! I've ordered mine but was hoping it came with a plug you could plug into a 12 v socket like you get on a car. My mower has got a 12 v socket. Liking the idea of your DIY solution!

[Mario149]

Mario149 said:

Cheib said:

Mario149 said:

http://www.abbeygardensales.co.uk/sprayers/tow-beh...

That's the one I was thinking of!

Sprayer now assembled and hooked up! Going to go massacre some moss in the next day or so once I've worked out the best way to hook it up to the mower's battery It comes with jump lead type clamps but I'm not sure they'll stay on. It also comes with permanent connectors which I think will fit, but I don't want to be screwing them on/off the battery every time I used it. I've got some motorcycle bullet connectors somewhere, so thinking of cutting the clamps off, fitting the perm connectors to the battery, then cutting the leads to fit the bullet connectors. Has the advantage that if I ever need power from the battery for anything else I can use the same connections.

Okay, so after some cutting and soldering, my above solution worked. I got the sprayer out and went over the garden twice.

However, few issues with the sprayer if anyone is thinking of buying one:

1) it def does not have a spray width of 2m, more like 1.3m if you don't want to have an unsprayed corridor down the middle. Not the end of the world, but it's not going to be as quick as you think.
2) if your garden is anything other than a nice rectangle or square, it's a bit of a 'mare to use. I tried working in from the outside, then I tried up and down, either way, trying to get even coverage is almost impossible. Dodging round trees and bushes etc is a massive faff. That said, I'm pretty sure it's still quicker than doing it with a manual sprayer, but probably not by all that much!
3) working out how much water is sprayed per 100m2 or whatever is complete trial and error. I did a dry run with just plain water and worked out that I was doing 60m2 per litre. Then I actually did it proper and worked out that I'm getting about 40m2 per litre, so in theory the 57 litre capacity should do almost if not all my lawn. In reality, when you're down to the last 10 litres, it's sloshing about so much the pipe which sucks the water in to the pump gets air 50% of the time. All of this makes a bit of a mockery of the instructions on lawnsmith which say use 1g/m2 to achieve X, 2g to achieve Y and 4g to achieve Z. In reality, you'll be lucky to be within a multiple of 2 of the figure you're after.

Finally, the biggest problem and a question for those who've "iron sulphated" before: the iron sulphate does not appear to be killing the moss very well - I did most of the lawn area (about 2000m2) with 2 passes and used about 8kg which to my understanding should have been basically enough. BUT, only a few test patches where I properly gave the moss the good news with the manual sprayer attachment did it actually go brown/black. The rest of the lawn has slightly darker bits (places where I've overlapped the spraying it seems) and everywhere else the moss seems fine. Am I being too impatient? Or do you need to hit "critical mass" to actually kill the moss, otherwise you're just annoying it a bit?

Suggestions appreciated

[8-P]

How long since you sprayed the moss?

[Joe M]

When did you use the iron sulphate? Some of the Moss on mine went black pretty quick, but it was a few days before the whole lawn showed it.

[Mario149]

8-P said:

How long since you sprayed the moss?

About 4 hrs....

[Cheib]

Mario149 said:

8-P said:

How long since you sprayed the moss?

About 4 hrs....

Brilliantly impatient! I think we're talking days or a couple of weeks.

I've got some proper "commercial use only" weed killer which will kill anything with a leaf on it...that takes a week or so before you see it doing its work.

[MG-FIDO]

Mario149 said:

About 4 hrs....

Come back in a week or two

[Mario149]

Cheib said:

Brilliantly impatient! I think we're talking days or a couple of weeks

....

Just assumed that since the test patches went black in about 30 mins, the rest would follow not too long after!

[Tony Angelino]

Craikeybaby said:

You should be able to get away without killing the moss, unless there's loads of it. I just used the scarifier to rip it out and it hasn't come back.

Thanks, the moss is mainly in the lawn with the swings and doesnt really show how bad it is on the pictures. The lawn with the borders is only mild, so might try get away with that one without using the chemicals.

thanks