2018 Lawn thread

[tim0409]

I thought I would get in early with a 2018 lawn thread to follow on from 2017.

I scarified in September, top dressed and re-seaded but by the end of the growing season it hadn't quite come back to life so I have high hopes for next year. I need to reshape/reduce the size of the lawn by about 25% to accommodate larger borders (and replant the garden) when the weather is a bit better so quite a bit ahead in 2018....

[tim0409]

Today was the first opportunity to get out into the garden in a long time, and I've had an empty skip waiting to be filled for the last three weeks. We have decided to reshape the lawn to give us bigger borders and effectively start again with the planting (I've realised I'm not very good at the design work so will enlist some help!). We are also digging up some horrible decorative stones around the patio and intend to extend the paving. We've a home exchange coming up so the pressure is on!

Last year I scarified and re-seeded but I think it was too late in the season; I compounded this by deciding to use some lawn food in November which has a poor decision....I'm hoping it will start looking much better as soon as the weather improves.

[tim0409]

I'm quite pleased with my work on the lawn yesterday; after scarifying (massacring) it too late last year, it never really recovered, and there was still a lot of dead/yellow grass when it stared growing this year. I used the rake attachment just deep enough to lightly score the soil, and it seems to have worked. I've re-seeded it, and I'm hoping for great things this year..

[tim0409]

jimmy156 said:

Not sure what the chimney does! It is either a vent for the current sewer, of whatever is under the paving slab to the left of it. Again not entirely sure what is under there, could be a soak away or an old sewerage system or something.

I would be tempted to find out what it is; if it's just a vent you could dig a trench and use some 110mm drainage pipe and extend it underground towards the bushes.

[tim0409]

Progress update..

After raking, over-seeding (a few month ago) and finally feeding 10 days ago I'm really happy; it's so much better than last year and is growing at an alarming rate!

[tim0409]

I made the mistake of scarifying and over-seeding this time last year and it didn't take and looked really poor until Spring. That said, I'm in Scotland and it's obviously cooler here. The growth has really slowed in the last two weeks; I fed it 10 days ago and cut it today and I'm really happy with the way it is looking going into Winter (for once!)