2016 Lawn thread

[Tony Angelino]

jagnet said:

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.

Thanks, will give this ago with the seed. Looking at the products, is there any reason why I couldn't get something cheaper like the enclosed link?

http://www.keithsingletonhorticulture.com/25siron-...

Am I missing something or is this the right stuff to use in the reccomended dosage for fertilising and killing the moss prior to scariffying? Suits me to get from here if possible.

Will get the grass seed sorted as reccomended and update as we progress.

thanks for all the help.

[Willeh85]

I've just given my lawn a very close shave ready to do some work tomorrow which include scarify and roll out some of the bits that have heaved over winter, followed by some light aeration and overseeding. Pics to follow.

I'm not really doing things at the right time of year but Its better to do them when I have time than not at all! Ideally I would have liked to have rotivated and started again from scratch, and built a nice large shed but I'm trying to sell up and move so don't want to plough money into the garden (pun intended)

[AC43]

jagnet said:

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.

I just found this out to my cost. Last summer I did great job on my front lawn - the usual spiking/scarifying/iron supate/verdone/topsoil/seed combo and it looked better that ever.

However, it's north facing and very much shaded all winter by the house and low an behold 80% died back to be replaced by moss.

Back on the tools - or at least iron sulphate, topsoil and SHADE TOLERANT seed......

[BRISTOL86]

Well I've finally got round to aerating, top dressing and overseeding/seeding the back lawn

Think I went a bit heavy on the seed, reminiscent of an explosion at a sawmill in places!

How often should I be watering presuming it stays dry? Once a day/twice? And for how long? It's heavy clay soil so doesn't take too long before it gets quite sodden, especially where there is no grass at all in patches.

[AC43]

BRISTOL86 said:

How often should I be watering presuming it stays dry? Once a day/twice? And for how long?

I try and give mine a light water first in the morning and again in the evening. I give it 5=10 mins is enough.

If you can only do it once do it in the evening as evaporation is minimised.

[BRISTOL86]

AC43 said:

I try and give mine a light water first in the morning and again in the evening. I give it 5=10 mins is enough.

If you can only do it once do it in the evening as evaporation is minimised.

Thanks, I will be able to give it a few minutes each morning as well as watering in the evening so I'll try and follow that!

[jagnet]

Tony Angelino said:

Thanks, will give this ago with the seed. Looking at the products, is there any reason why I couldn't get something cheaper like the enclosed link?

http://www.keithsingletonhorticulture.com/25siron-...

Am I missing something or is this the right stuff to use in the reccomended dosage for fertilising and killing the moss prior to scariffying? Suits me to get from here if possible.

Will get the grass seed sorted as reccomended and update as we progress.

thanks for all the help.

That'll be fine. Just be careful when applying it (as with any ferrous sulphate) in moss killing concentrations not to overdose as in higher amounts it can kill the grass too. Also note that it's not a fertiliser for grass, although the iron is beneficial for the grass too. You can add a fertiliser later after raking out the moss; something like lawnsith's 6-9-6 starter fertiliser would be ideal for new seed development and as a light boost for the existing grass until the new seed gets a foothold.

[NorthDave]

Hi Guys

This is a great thread - I've been following the advice this year. I always really struggle with my lawn as there are some huge trees near by. Last year I didn't collect the leaves up quickly enough and they killed loads of the grass. Someone told me the leaves are very acidic when they decompose and this is what did the damage?

I've managed to go from this at christmas (sorry for the poor camera shot!):


To this as of this morning:


I'm pretty happy with progress although the right hand side nearest a hedge is a little bare. My problem is I have a fair few of these in the lawn:


Do I just pull them out or leave them and assume the grass will eventually sort them out? I guess they were introduced in one of the many batches of grass seed I have been throwing down! I have some more arriving today if pulling them out and patching makes sense?

Thanks again for the great advice on here.

[BRISTOL86]

Guys

When I top dressed and seeded last night I found it quite hard to mix he seed through the top dressing as such, and so it's more kind of 'sat' on top of it (though I did tread over it to try and get good contact with the soil)

Should I be covering the largest patches of bare seed with a thin layer of topsoil just to cover the seed over? I don't have any more of the top dressing I used but I have four bags of homebase top soil lying around.

[8-P]

NorthDave said:

Hi Guys

This is a great thread - I've been following the advice this year. I always really struggle with my lawn as there are some huge trees near by. Last year I didn't collect the leaves up quickly enough and they killed loads of the grass. Someone told me the leaves are very acidic when they decompose and this is what did the damage?

I've managed to go from this at christmas (sorry for the poor camera shot!):


To this as of this morning:


I'm pretty happy with progress although the right hand side nearest a hedge is a little bare. My problem is I have a fair few of these in the lawn:


Do I just pull them out or leave them and assume the grass will eventually sort them out? I guess they were introduced in one of the many batches of grass seed I have been throwing down! I have some more arriving today if pulling them out and patching makes sense?

Thanks again for the great advice on here.

Personally Id dig them out and re seed the patches(Ive just done this), they wont go on their own

[8-P]

BRISTOL86 said:

Guys

When I top dressed and seeded last night I found it quite hard to mix he seed through the top dressing as such, and so it's more kind of 'sat' on top of it (though I did tread over it to try and get good contact with the soil)

Should I be covering the largest patches of bare seed with a thin layer of topsoil just to cover the seed over? I don't have any more of the top dressing I used but I have four bags of homebase top soil lying around.

I was reading a bit more about this last night because I seeded about 3 or 4 weeks ago. Most has come through but Im going to need to re seed some areas again. From what I read the ideal is that the seed is pushed into the soil with some seed in some seed exposed. It seems too much soil can be too heavy and could stop the shoot pushing through. When I did mine first time round it was a pretty random mish mash, thin layer of top soil, seeds mixed in and swept evenly with a brush - it seemed to work. I probably either wont use any or just a litle when I add more, dont want to kill whats now coming through.

[Mario149]

Mario149 said:

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!

Okay, so the good news is the moss is now going black as of about 24 hours after spraying The test patch I blitzed with the manual sprayer has actually gone white now I presume that isn't good, luckily it's only a small patch!

The bad news is that I clearly need to work on the set up of the nozzles and boom on the sprayer as, despite my best efforts, essentially they're missing the middle bit of the track out. Combine that with the fact that I was overlapping tracks (as suggested in the sprayer manual) like I do when I mow and that the trailer doesn't exactly follow the tractor when turning and you get this....










I especially like the massive triangle of missed grass in the lower right of pic 1, that's not just a (lack of) shadow effect

So the question is, what to do now? Do I try and fill in the gaps and risk over doing it? Or will most of the missed moss patches eventually die as well as the FeSO4 "percolates" through/around? Thoughts?

Edited by Mario149 on Thursday 5th May 09:04

[Willeh85]

8-P said:

Personally Id dig them out and re seed the patches(Ive just done this), they wont go on their own

I second this, I've found they also make the lawn very bumpy and unevnen due to the way they sprout out in all directions.

[Esseesse]

Willeh85 said:

8-P said:

Personally Id dig them out and re seed the patches(Ive just done this), they wont go on their own

I second this, I've found they also make the lawn very bumpy and unevnen due to the way they sprout out in all directions.

What are 'they'?

[BRISTOL86]

8-P said:

I was reading a bit more about this last night because I seeded about 3 or 4 weeks ago. Most has come through but Im going to need to re seed some areas again. From what I read the ideal is that the seed is pushed into the soil with some seed in some seed exposed. It seems too much soil can be too heavy and could stop the shoot pushing through. When I did mine first time round it was a pretty random mish mash, thin layer of top soil, seeds mixed in and swept evenly with a brush - it seemed to work. I probably either wont use any or just a litle when I add more, dont want to kill whats now coming through.

Thanks - yeah I was only planning on giving it a little sprinkling just to cover some of the seed as I've already seen birds pecking at it, and it's moving a little when I water it despite trying to tread it in as best I could.

[8-P]

Esseesse said:

What are 'they'?

Good question, some things like dandylions you can whip out job done hopefully. I also have weeds that grow more like clover ie wide spread, I guess this sort of thing needs weed killer although Ive done that once, it had a mixed effect, digging it out would leave me with slabs of re-seeding to do, not keen on that

[Willeh85]

This is the 'they' we were talking about. I believe its crab grass, it also seems to grow quicker and taller than other grass and also seeds quickly so spreads its bd spawn (in my case to the adjoing flower beds), but it could just be my hatred for it making me irrational.

NorthDave said:

[Willeh85]

Here is the work I've done this morning. Apparently all the tool hire shops around Derby all fall under one umbrella and neither had an electric lawn rake or roller I could hire at short notice as everyone else appears to have the same plans.

Anyway, I didn't want to waste my time off work, so I manually raked it in about an hour and then used my lawn mower with roller to firm the seed down. I cut it very close yesterday, perhaps too close but its allowed me to identify the areas that are slightly higher than the rest.


All that thatch and moss from one pass with the rake, did I actually have any grass at all?


second pass at a 45degree angle, not nearly as much as the first pass but still a lot!


After I'd cleared up the thatch and moss, I went over with the mower again to clear up what the rake couldn't and then did my overseading. Proof will be in the pudding in a few weeks time!


I'm going to enjoy sitting in the garden for the rest of the afternoon with a cold beer and watching the various birds that are flying in for an easy meal

[8-P]

Back breaking with a rake, ouch

[Joe M]

How did you spread the seed? I've just received my seed and fertiliser order from lawnsmith and I think a spreader is the last thing I need to complete the task. Small garden, less than 100sqm. Ive looked at the handheld evergreen one but reviews are very mixed.