2017 Lawn thread

[g3org3y]

jagnet said:

A challenging environment. Much shade from the Willow trees, coupled with them being very thirsty trees so it's going to be a very dry shade. With no dedicated path you'll also need a seed mix that's wear tolerant to cope with foot traffic down that lawn (most dry shade fescue/bent mixes aren't that wear tolerant unless mixed with other grasses).

Fortunately Germinal's A6 Supreme Shade is just the ticket. Contains:

• Poa supina - the stand out shade tolerant grass. Will survive in even very deep shade and is also wear tolerant
• Poa pratensis - very wear tolerant and good at regenerating thanks to its strong rhizomes.
• Creeping red fescue - good in dry conditions. Also has strong rhizomes.
• Browntop bent - very fine leaved grass that's great for adding density to the sward.

It's a fairly expensive seed mix, but I really would strongly advise using it. If this seed mix won't work in those conditions then nothing will.

Thank you for your advice jagnet.

Excuse my ignorance, is there merit in seeding now or is this something that should be left until next year?

[Humpy D]

Woke up on Monday to the sight of my lawn having been dug up and what looked to have been scarified in a few places.

I'm quite particular about the lawn looking nice and so this isn't ideal as whilst it's not too bad it looks unsightly especially when I have to put topsoil and seed down to try and repair the damage.

I've done some investigation and I'm pretty sure foxes are causing the problem, looking for worms and grubs. The holes look a bit too big for a squirrel, being the size of a small fist and about 2 inches deep.

It looks like there a very few reliable methods to stop this happening so is it a seasonal thing and if so when will it stop

[wjwren]

g3org3y said:

Thank you for your advice jagnet.

Excuse my ignorance, is there merit in seeding now or is this something that should be left until next year?

I seeded a large patch few weeks ago - the key is to keep the soil moist. I bought a hose timer off ebay for a few pounds and then left the sprinkler on the patch that was seeded and set it to water 2 mins every hour 7am - 9pm. The soil remainded moist and it was green in 10 days.

[bomb]

[TheInternet]

Too much dead grass in the lawn. Had it been a very dry summer I could understand it but it has had a reasonable amount of rain.

In an effort to keep the moss at bay it's been cut sparingly and long, and received infrequent, high-level scarifying. It had iron sulphate in April followed by a 4-in-1 treatment prior to overseeding.

More water needed or something else? Not sure if it's drying out more due to length? Would like to feed and scarify it properly again before the end of the year.

[SWAT78]

Very Noddy question, but what's the best / easiest way to keep the grass tidy where it's growing right up to a fence? I've been trying to use edging shears, but they're awkward because they're designed to cut grass lying horizontally away from the turf rather than vertically against a fence.

I suspect the correct answer is "strimmer" - assuming so is there some kind of guard I should be looking for to avoid destroying both it and the bottom of the fence on the first outing?

[jagnet]

g3org3y said:

Excuse my ignorance, is there merit in seeding now or is this something that should be left until next year?

Seeding now is good - autumn is imho preferable to spring seeding. As the weather over the last month has been pretty wet then there's plenty of ground moisture available already so I'd get cracking on it as soon as.

[g3org3y]

jagnet said:

g3org3y said:

Excuse my ignorance, is there merit in seeding now or is this something that should be left until next year?

Seeding now is good - autumn is imho preferable to spring seeding. As the weather over the last month has been pretty wet then there's plenty of ground moisture available already so I'd get cracking on it as soon as.

Thanks Jagnet. I'll get a bag or two of that seed you recommended and get started!

Do you have a compost of preference?

[Rib]

Humpy D said:

Woke up on Monday to the sight of my lawn having been dug up and what looked to have been scarified in a few places.

I'm quite particular about the lawn looking nice and so this isn't ideal as whilst it's not too bad it looks unsightly especially when I have to put topsoil and seed down to try and repair the damage.

I've done some investigation and I'm pretty sure foxes are causing the problem, looking for worms and grubs. The holes look a bit too big for a squirrel, being the size of a small fist and about 2 inches deep.

It looks like there a very few reliable methods to stop this happening so is it a seasonal thing and if so when will it stop

Where they have been digging try peeling the lawn back like a carpet, chances are it's chafer grubs which have becoming a worsening problem in the last few years in my area, if it is its coning up to the time to treat for them with nematodes, but they work best if the lawn is aerated beforehand and they need plenty of water before, during and after for up to 3 weeks to make sure they can survive and kill off the fresh grubs from this year (won't usually kill of the large ones yiu see in the soil) and a 2nd application next autumn may be needed again

[Rib]

TheInternet said:

Too much dead grass in the lawn. Had it been a very dry summer I could understand it but it has had a reasonable amount of rain.

In an effort to keep the moss at bay it's been cut sparingly and long, and received infrequent, high-level scarifying. It had iron sulphate in April followed by a 4-in-1 treatment prior to overseeding.

More water needed or something else? Not sure if it's drying out more due to length? Would like to feed and scarify it properly again before the end of the year.

Probably dry patch (good bit on the rhs or greenthumb site) fork it over (if it's very hard then almost definitely dry patch) and water with washing up water each day for about a week and you should see it starting to improve

[HRH2009]

Humpy D said:

Woke up on Monday to the sight of my lawn having been dug up and what looked to have been scarified in a few places.

I'm quite particular about the lawn looking nice and so this isn't ideal as whilst it's not too bad it looks unsightly especially when I have to put topsoil and seed down to try and repair the damage.

I've done some investigation and I'm pretty sure foxes are causing the problem, looking for worms and grubs. The holes look a bit too big for a squirrel, being the size of a small fist and about 2 inches deep.

It looks like there a very few reliable methods to stop this happening so is it a seasonal thing and if so when will it stop

Given that badgers live on earthworms, it is highly unlikely that foxes are the source of your problem.

I have seen the same digging damage in an orchard, though fortunately not on the lawn adjacent to the house.

There is precious little one can do to prevent this damage, as badger numbers have escalated over the years.

Without any control of their numbers, badgers have been a have been a source of bovine TB and are now virtually a plague in many rural areas.

[TheInternet]

Rib said:

water with washing up water

What's the deal with this? Water containing detergent / surfactants or something else?

[jagnet]

g3org3y said:

Thanks Jagnet. I'll get a bag or two of that seed you recommended and get started!

Do you have a compost of preference?

Nice mature crumbly leaf mould made from oak outshines everything imho, but if you don't happen to have some to hand then waiting a couple of years is going to be pain! As leaf mould is produced through slow fungal dominated cold composting the result is just a wonderful friable rich humus.

Following that, year old home made compost that's had a good proportion of woody material added is very good. It's had plenty of time to mature and there's a really good fungal population developed.

Garden centre composts are ok, certainly better than nothing, but the speed at which they're processed doesn't give them time to fully mature, not to the extent that a homemade compost will do so in months 6 to 12.

Well rotted manure based composts have their place, and I really like to use them for roses, veg etc, but they're what I'd term a 'light' compost. They don't produce the stable rich heavy humus that a more woody compost would so in a light sandy soil they'll more rapidly wash out. They're high in nutrients but as a long term soil amendment they're not so useful imho.

I've mentioned biochar in the past and it's perhaps worth mentioning again. The addition of charcoal to compost (ideally when building the compost heap) really enhances any compost. The huge surface area of the charcoal retains moisture and nutrients and provides a home for bacteria and fungi. Being a most stable form of carbon it won't wash out from or degrade in the soil like the carbon in humus. Thanks to their high levels of charcoal, the Terra Preta soils in the Amazon basin are still rich and fertile some 2000 years later, despite the surrounding soil being very very poor. Charcoal particles 400 million years old have been found in soil - that really is stable!

There's also many references to the use of charcoal to enhance field productivity in farming from books from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Charcoal can be added to any compost before incorporating, but it is necessary to treat that charcoal with nutrients first. Adding it to the compost pile as its built will avoid this and trap many nutrients that might otherwise be washed out from the compost as it matures.

You can source ready to use biochar from some charcoal producers, eg these ones in W Sussex that can just be added to compost without any further treatment.

Just don't try to make biochar from normal bbq charcoal briquettes from the petrol station as they're usually impregnated with stuff that's not going to help your soil any!

[Chris Type R]

Is there a preventative treatment for moss on reasonably recently laid lawn (< 12 months) which is in the shade ? I'm cutting quite long but can see moss forming under the grass already.

[Rib]

Apply an iron based liquid feed and moss Control, this will help to suppress it down and re apply a couple of months later if yiu see green moss making a come back

[Rib]

TheInternet said:

What's the deal with this? Water containing detergent / surfactants or something else?

Acts as a watering agent so takes the surface tension out the water and helps it penatrate into the soil better. Proper watering agents are better obviously but if it's a few small patches then this is a cheap fix

[Rib]

HRH2009 said:

Humpy D said:

Woke up on Monday to the sight of my lawn having been dug up and what looked to have been scarified in a few places.

I'm quite particular about the lawn looking nice and so this isn't ideal as whilst it's not too bad it looks unsightly especially when I have to put topsoil and seed down to try and repair the damage.

I've done some investigation and I'm pretty sure foxes are causing the problem, looking for worms and grubs. The holes look a bit too big for a squirrel, being the size of a small fist and about 2 inches deep.

It looks like there a very few reliable methods to stop this happening so is it a seasonal thing and if so when will it stop

Given that badgers live on earthworms, it is highly unlikely that foxes are the source of your problem.

I have seen the same digging damage in an orchard, though fortunately not on the lawn adjacent to the house.

There is precious little one can do to prevent this damage, as badger numbers have escalated over the years.

Without any control of their numbers, badgers have been a have been a source of bovine TB and are now virtually a plague in many rural areas.

If it's chafer grubs can quite easily be foxes, badgers or even birds of the rook family. I've seen whole lawns decimated by foxes going for chafer grubs. If it's not those then yes not much you can do about have normal worms etc in the lawn

[Muncher]

Jagnet - I have several bags of "soil improver" which I got from a free composting event, it is partially composted leaves and other stuff, is it worth me adding this to my freshly sieved soil before I sow grass seed on it?

[Chris Type R]

Rib said:

Apply an iron based liquid feed and moss Control, this will help to suppress it down and re apply a couple of months later if yiu see green moss making a come back

Thanks, I have a tub of Iron Sulphate which I think I can use ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/PREMIUM-Iron-Sulphate-dil... )

[wjwren]

Muncher said:

Jagnet - I have several bags of "soil improver" which I got from a free composting event, it is partially composted leaves and other stuff, is it worth me adding this to my freshly sieved soil before I sow grass seed on it?

Before I seeded mine I added loads of horse manure, coffee grounds, partially rotted veg, leaf mould, tea bags, in fact anything i could get hold of! then raked it all in using one of these.