2017 Lawn thread

[Too Late]

Right chaps.

I am in need of some serious lawn help...
I have stones, bits of cement, uneven ground, patches, weeds

There are 2 levels, which late in November, i tried to create a small ramp between the levels. This inst the look i wanted so i will build a small 2/3 course brick step between the 2 levels.

As you can seem, my garden is in need of some love


The area in the below picture will be turfed as it can be shaded down here for large parts of the day, so turfing it might speed up the process?





I have some questions:
I have a rake, which once the weather improves, will rake the whole garden but is there any better tools out there for this?
If i were to re-seed, whats the best way to do this?
Which seed should i get?

Thanks
Nick

Edited by Too Late on Monday 13th February 10:44

[8-P]

Thats quite a job, imho you are almost at rotovate and start from scratch situation. Or scarifying raking, manual weeding, shady seeding etc

[Too Late]

8-P said:

Thats quite a job, imho you are almost at rotovate and start from scratch situation. Or scarifying raking, manual weeding, shady seeding etc

Thanks, i was wondering if i should rotivate it all....

When should i start? as i expect once i rotivate the grass, i will have to seed not long after?

[8-P]

Bit early yet to seed imho. You need some warmth to get the seed to germinate, 15+ would be ideal really and you might get away with it in late March April? Nothing to say you couldnt prep the area first but probably not much point. Id be tempted to dig out the weeds so they dont spread any further and breed. Then rotovate etc later on. Looks like you have quite a lot of shade / North facing? Id be tempted to get my borders a bit more defined, the grass seems to drift into the shrubs, you could then plant up with shrubs that dont mind the shade rather than ending up with weeds. Just my thought, more advice will follow from others Im sure.

[Too Late]

8-P said:

Bit early yet to seed imho. You need some warmth to get the seed to germinate, 15+ would be ideal really and you might get away with it in late March April? Nothing to say you couldnt prep the area first but probably not much point. Id be tempted to dig out the weeds so they dont spread any further and breed. Then rotovate etc later on. Looks like you have quite a lot of shade / North facing? Id be tempted to get my borders a bit more defined, the grass seems to drift into the shrubs, you could then plant up with shrubs that dont mind the shade rather than ending up with weeds. Just my thought, more advice will follow from others Im sure.

Thanks 8-P for the advice. I will spend some time over the weekend preping before i rotovate

Thanks!

[drab1]

My lawn isn't too terrible.. but my hedge is. Any advice? [url|http://thumbsnap.com/g1Pg0ioJ[/url] [url|http://thumbsnap.com/90qymlxx[/url] [url|http://thumbsnap.com/6FEWx3lE[/url] [url|http://thumbsnap.com/vtmqgsm6[/url]The rough plans are: decking over the area at the back of the garden, fencing and a gate in line with the garage; sort out the hedge; make a path along the hedge

[SonicHedgeHog]

I've put lawn feed and moss killer down already. Temperature seems to be warming up and I want stripes on my lawn. It's amazing how much moss builds up over the winter.

[8-P]

Second cut of the year done. Spiked it too, holes not whiskey. Moss has returned with a vengeance I was itching to get the scarifier out but this weather is a blip not a norm so I left it in the garage. Mower still an utter pita to start(not lack of use related) think its new carb time.

[Welshbeef]

Too Late said:

Right chaps.

I am in need of some serious lawn help...
I have stones, bits of cement, uneven ground, patches, weeds

There are 2 levels, which late in November, i tried to create a small ramp between the levels. This inst the look i wanted so i will build a small 2/3 course brick step between the 2 levels.

As you can seem, my garden is in need of some love


The area in the below picture will be turfed as it can be shaded down here for large parts of the day, so turfing it might speed up the process?





I have some questions:
I have a rake, which once the weather improves, will rake the whole garden but is there any better tools out there for this?
If i were to re-seed, whats the best way to do this?
Which seed should i get?

Thanks
Nick

Edited by Too Late on Monday 13th February 10:44

I guess the question should be do you want it to enjoy for the whole of this summer or maybe only just in autumn if Lucky?

If the former start from scratch - more cost sure but ultimate finish will be far far better.

[505diff]

On the subject of moss, a lot of our garden, not just the lawn seems to have a lot more moss than this time last year, so I guess it's been the weather conditions this winter. We have a conservatory which gets the odd bit of moss which falls of the main roof, this was cleaned before Christmas and now has more than a whole winters worth on it. The lawn is looking moss ridden in places, but I'm leaving mine in until mid April/May before overseeing, in the past I've tired to get things moving too early and it's struggled.

[Hobo]

Recently moved house and one of the gardens (circa 600m2) is in somewhat shabby condition. It was previously divided into various areas, or lawn, greenhouse area, vegatable patch, etc, etc.

I've removed the greenhouse and it's foundations, and rotated the vegan able patch (removed the necessary vegatation). I've now turfed approx 1/4 of the 'to be' lawn edging area, but the remaining lawn needs quite a but of work.

I've purchased some renovator pro and got myself an allett Kensington petrol mower with verticut and scarifier cartridges. And looking to start work in the next few weeks. Still haven't decided on the grass seed type.

Fun ahead.

[numtumfutunch]

Thought Id jump on board this thread too

We moved in to our house 10y ago
The lawn faces west (not ideal) and to start with was only green on account of moss

Over a period of 3y or so I treated it with B&Q products and it improved, then scarifying it x2 per year brought it on nicely too
I had tried a national lawn treatment franchise for green 'fingered' people but they were utterly unreliable locally so I binned them

Unfortunately just as it was looking great I made the fatal beginners mistake of then cutting too low
Combined with a couple of poor summers and a hedge which got out of control shading the grass the moss came back with a vengeance

Im now just under a year down the line with my new program of cyclical treatments from the Lawnsmith range - a great resource too I found whilst lurking on a previous lawn thread here - and things are looking much better.

Its difficult to say whats had the biggest effect, either raising my blade height to one Id have never previously considered and cutting twice as often or the products, but even today in February I can see the moss is well under control

Hollow tine aeration is on my 'to-do' list for this year, however the way things are looking its now a luxury not necessity

Good luck all!

[jagnet]

Hobo said:

Recently moved house and one of the gardens (circa 600m2) is in somewhat shabby condition. It was previously divided into various areas, or lawn, greenhouse area, vegatable patch, etc, etc.

I've removed the greenhouse and it's foundations, and rotated the vegan able patch (removed the necessary vegatation). I've now turfed approx 1/4 of the 'to be' lawn edging area, but the remaining lawn needs quite a but of work.

I've purchased some renovator pro and got myself an allett Kensington petrol mower with verticut and scarifier cartridges. And looking to start work in the next few weeks. Still haven't decided on the grass seed type.

Fun ahead.

When creating a lawn on mixed areas of garden such as that, taking care to get the rootzone soil similar throughout by moving soil around and amending as required makes a big difference. A times of stress for the grass, areas such as vegetable patches will look far better than areas of poorer soil such as where the greenhouse or old paths stood. Outside of late spring and early autumn those different areas will be clearly visible even if the ground levels are nice and consistant.

numtumfutunch said:

Its difficult to say whats had the biggest effect, either raising my blade height to one Id have never previously considered and cutting twice as often or the products, but even today in February I can see the moss is well under control

The former, without doubt. Height of cut and cutting frequency makes a massive difference to the quality of the grass. Get that right and you could fertilise with agricultural products (with a bit of know how) and still have a very fine lawn.

That's not to denigrate The Lawnsmith's products at all, and I'm sure they'd agree with the above. Imho, where the Lawnsmith products make life easier is that they're consistant, easy to use and don't try to answer all aspects of lawn care in one hit.

[WinstonWolf]

First cut of the year Spring is on it's way...

[richatnort]

Hi all,

So in my first house and going to tackle the garden first and especially re lawn.

The lawn has a lot of moss on it and I want to tackle that first. I know it's coming up to the right time to put some treatment down but wondering if anyone had any good stuff that I should buy?

Also my parents have a lawn spider that takes holes out of the lawn to get air in but should I do this? Any other tips I'd love to hear them.

[Too Late]

So i have tried to weed, rake and pick up as much waste from the graden as possible. Still some way to go but its and improvement








Whats the best lawn weed killer? i have a lot of weeds
We are hoping to move this year so Rotivating is now not an option, we have a ton or 2 of topsoil planned for delivery in the next 2 weeks so i can level out areas and will reseed the whole lot. Hopefully thats the right way to go about it!

[8-P]

Looks like a good start, I reckon you could re-seed those patches but youll need to time it with your weed killer application. If you try to seed too close to weed killer it wont germinate. Just follow the instructions on the packet, Lawnsmith have some pretty sound advice, they also sell weedkiller but to be honest you can buy it almost anywhere. You could either go with a hand spray type application or a mass zap the entire area with a sprayer when you dilute it into water. Ive had reasonable success with both although my lawn is smallish, actually not far off your own so I tend to just do manual removal and some spot killer now its up to speed.

http://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/lawn-care-videos/lawn-w...

[Too Late]

8-P said:

Looks like a good start, I reckon you could re-seed those patches but youll need to time it with your weed killer application. If you try to seed too close to weed killer it wont germinate. Just follow the instructions on the packet, Lawnsmith have some pretty sound advice, they also sell weedkiller but to be honest you can buy it almost anywhere. You could either go with a hand spray type application or a mass zap the entire area with a sprayer when you dilute it into water. Ive had reasonable success with both although my lawn is smallish, actually not far off your own so I tend to just do manual removal and some spot killer now its up to speed.

http://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/lawn-care-videos/lawn-w...

Thanks 8-P.
Really appreciate the replies.
Thanks for the Lawnsmith link! what a great website.

I have just ordered some the the Lawnsmith recommended weed killer. Good shout on watching when to spray and seed. If it keeps being so warm, i might spray the weed killer soon, then give it 3 weeks for me to topsoil it all and get it ready for sewing the seed

[8-P]

It does look shady there, youll want to wait a while for seeding for more daylight and more warmth. Id be half tempted just to hit the weedkilling up now, but Im impatient like that.

[Candellara]

First "rough" cut of the season done this weekend. When should i treat the lawn with some "feed and weed" granules to start killing off winter moss etc?