2018 Lawn thread

Author
Discussion

robertredford

10 posts

71 months

Wednesday 18th April 2018
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stewjohnst said:
I fear I may be letting the side down a little for a few weeks...

Brilliant!! roflbiglaugh

Looking forward to see the finished result wink

g3org3y

20,606 posts

190 months

Wednesday 18th April 2018
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Anyone had experience of MossOff?

Our puppy has a tendency to chew/eat moss. Would rather not poison/kill him (wife would be annoyed).

Is this stuff worth giving a go? It seems recommend by the lawnsmith.

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

sc0tt

18,032 posts

200 months

Wednesday 18th April 2018
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First cut of my lawn last night in my new house.

Lots of green weeds and I think I cut it too short. Now its going to be 27oC and I haven't a hose hehe

It looks green at least and flat. I need to seed a corner of the garden where they had a bloody trampoline. I'll post a pic later.

untakenname

4,953 posts

191 months

Wednesday 18th April 2018
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This threads given me some inspiration to do my lawn.
Found a lawnmower in the shed at the back of the garden that had been discarded by the previous owner and judging by the rust and snails on it hadn't been used in years, put a new fuse in but it just mashed up the grass and didn't really cut it whilst all the while making a horrific squealing noise.

Was gonna buy a new one but did a little research online, back in the day it was a decent mower so decided this afternoon to refurb it, watched some rotary mower experts on youtube then fitted new bearing and backlapped the blade using a impact driver spinning the blades and some valve lapping paste


Pretty impressed with the result (have the depth setting on 4 out of 5 as it's the first cut of the year) and it's a lot quieter than my old conventional mower.


jagnet

4,095 posts

201 months

Wednesday 18th April 2018
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g3org3y said:
Anyone had experience of MossOff?
That's interesting. Looks like a mix of water, flour, linseed oil and acidifiers to preserve. Throw in some pigment and that's pretty much the recipe I use for rabbit safe paint on their hutches!

Couldn't say whether or not it'll work on moss, but if it helps, our rabbits have never suffered from moss on their houses smile

Talking of paint, I finally got around to reassembling one of my Ransomes Ajax mowers this week after stripping it down and giving it some tlc. Should be good for another 50 years now:



Given the amount of corrosion protection it now has it should last even longer than that.

g3org3y

20,606 posts

190 months

Wednesday 18th April 2018
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jagnet said:
g3org3y said:
Anyone had experience of MossOff?
That's interesting. Looks like a mix of water, flour, linseed oil and acidifiers to preserve. Throw in some pigment and that's pretty much the recipe I use for rabbit safe paint on their hutches!

Couldn't say whether or not it'll work on moss, but if it helps, our rabbits have never suffered from moss on their houses smile
I've ordered some (and a sprayer), I'll let you know how I get on.

Will be using this fertiliser and will be re/overseeing with this Premium Shade seed.

stewjohnst

2,442 posts

160 months

Wednesday 18th April 2018
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For the part of the lawn I could get to, gave it a first cut, more to ease the detection of the dreaded dog poo as the kids play out. (Sadly his normal trained spot is blocked off due to the building works posted earlier frown )



Not the best condition as it has been neglected as I’ve been getting the rest of the garden up to spec, laying paths, planting trees and wheel barrowing 7 tonnes of gravel, etc.


Harry Flashman

19,283 posts

241 months

Thursday 19th April 2018
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So this is what we bought last September. Yes folks, those are brambles. 100 x 50 feet of them.

78 back garden by baconrashers, on Flickr

78 rear view by baconrashers, on Flickr

After having them removed, cutting down 3 dead trees and some heavy pruning, we are here. Next week, a 50 square metre patio and turfing of the rest of the garden begins...pic below is after bramble removal, but pre pruning and tree cutting And the orange fence is a treatment area for Japanese Knotweed (in its third year of treatment this spring and thankfully no sign of resurgence)

DSC_1102 by baconrashers, on Flickr




M3ax

1,291 posts

211 months

Thursday 19th April 2018
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You don’t do things by halves do you Harry? smile

wjwren

4,484 posts

134 months

Thursday 19th April 2018
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^ nice oak tree.

Harry Flashman

19,283 posts

241 months

Thursday 19th April 2018
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We are lucky to have that oak in a London garden: I love it and have plans for a hammock/swing under it if it is strong enough. We have some great trees - two apples, as well as a fruiting damson (useful for damson gin this autumn!)

First child is due in August so I really need to get this house and garden finished before Lady F is very pregnant and just wants some peace (i.e. soon).

Progress being made on lawn - a lot of digging out to get all the barmble roots etc. I have lawn envy from thispost - coyft's rather nice stripey one especially. I feel we're some way from that...


Untitled by baconrashers, on Flickr

Untitled by baconrashers, on Flickr





Edited by Harry Flashman on Thursday 19th April 15:39

westtra

1,531 posts

200 months

Thursday 19th April 2018
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So have just this minute finished covering grass in moss off.

How long until i get the electric scarifier/rake on it and what order? Rake then scarifier?

CharlieH89

9,079 posts

164 months

Friday 20th April 2018
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Spent a couple of hours on this last night. The previous owners must not have liked gardening at all. It was horrible.

The back is even worse. Will take a stab at it over the next couple of weeks.

Edited by CharlieH89 on Friday 20th April 18:52

GhostyDog

464 posts

206 months

Friday 20th April 2018
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ThatGuyWhoDoesStuff said:
I'm afraid I'm going to be 'that guy' for a minute.

Whilst I'm not averse to gardening and managing my lawn, I just don't have the time at the moment. Does anyone have experience with the more 'national' lawn care companies (Greenthumb etc) or would I be better going local.

Many thanks.
Interesting you post this now, I looked on their website today, used their calculation tool to figure out the area of garden and the complete package came to £6k (1,500 sq m)

I've got their local franchisee goung to come out and have a look at my grassy bits, plus the franchisee from another outfit. All I really want is it free of moss, dandelions and creeping buttercup which are the prevalent unwanteds in my garden. It doesn't need to be stripey, but i'd like it to look nice.

I have to wonder what you get for your money....

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 20th April 2018
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We used Green Thumb for a couple of years (when I was running a business, so rather time poor) and was quite happy with it.

I'm not sure whether it's 'good value' or not, but didn't seem unreasonable to me and the guy we had was very good and very friendly.

Patrick Bateman

12,143 posts

173 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
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That's the second cut and strim of the year done for me. Some light manual raking around the edges and fertiliser down.

Going to town with scarifying and iron sulphate last Autumn has paid dividends, there's never been so little moss in the lawn since I moved here in 2012.

Beanbagzilla

15 posts

95 months

Sunday 22nd April 2018
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Johnnytheboy said:
Is anyone else in the same pickle as me?

My lawn - on very heavy clay - has until now been virtually too wet to mow, and definitely too wet to put any chemicals on.

Now we are faced with two solid weeks of sun so anything I put on will not get watered in.

frown
I'm in the same boat, or field. Our back garden is composed of very heavy clay which is still soggy even after all this sun. If it rains the whole garden turns into a swamp for days/weeks. The house had a new lawn laid just before we moved in 5 years ago and it looks like they just laid the turf directly on top of the clay. I haven't been able to mow it at all this year yet and to top off everything the lawn is also sinking in places.

A few years ago I dug a soak away at the bottom of the garden as it slopes down away from the house. Even though I dug down 4/5 ft I couldn't break through the clay layer by hand so I installed a sump pump to shift the water into the drain (shhh). So far I've put in a single perforated pipe along with gravel but this has made little difference overall.





Below are a couple of photos of the soggiest parts of the garden from this morning:






I'm a loss on how to fix this, reading online suggests a network (herringbone) of pipes across the garden could help, however there are a distinct lack of "success stories" online that I'm loathed to start digging out the entire garden.

I'd be very interested (and grateful!) to hear from anyone fixed their horrible clay swampy gardens!?

Chicken Chaser

7,744 posts

223 months

Sunday 22nd April 2018
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Beanbagzilla, would it not make sense to hollow tine the whole lawn and then fill with topsoil of a more loamy variety?


Mine looked pretty poor about 10 days ago. Hadn't mowed it due to the weather and amount of rain had waterlogged it in places , so I forked and lifted the turves as recommended earlier in this thread. A couple of dry days and it made a massive difference. Cut it short yesterday, raked out the thatch (it's not overly mossy) and then ran over with the mower to pick it all up. Overseeded and gave it a gentle water to set it in. It's not looking half as bad now but hoping to get a thick sward in the coming weeks.

Edited by Chicken Chaser on Sunday 22 April 20:40

Beanbagzilla

15 posts

95 months

Sunday 22nd April 2018
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
That's my understanding too, it's just a lot of work to dig & install when I'm not 100% certain that it will help. The excess water is currently pumped back up towards the house through a pipe which connects to the gutter downpipe. Storing it in a water butt is a great idea, I'll have to look at getting one.


Chicken Chaser said:
Beanbagzilla, would it not make sense to hollow tine the whole lawn and then fill with topsoil of a more loamy variety?

Mine looked pretty poor about 10 days ago. Hadn't mowed it due to the weather and amount of rain had waterlogged it in places , so I forked and lifted the turves as recommended earlier in this thread. A couple of dry days and it made a massive difference. Cut it short yesterday, raked out the thatch (it's not overly mossy) and then ran over with the mower to pick it all up. Overseeded and gave it a gentle water to set it in. It's not looking half as bad now but hoping to get a thick sward in the coming weeks.

Edited by Chicken Chaser on Sunday 22 April 20:40
I "spiked" the lawn all over with a fork a couple of years back, someone mentioned that solid-tine aeration works better on heavy clay apparently? The holes & topsoil stayed for a bit then kind of "slopped" shut when it rained over a few days and I was back to square one.

Condi

17,089 posts

170 months

Sunday 22nd April 2018
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Beanbagzilla said:
I "spiked" the lawn all over with a fork a couple of years back, someone mentioned that solid-tine aeration works better on heavy clay apparently? The holes & topsoil stayed for a bit then kind of "slopped" shut when it rained over a few days and I was back to square one.
Your clay will run far too deep to bother about that, it wont make a difference.

Unfortunately to do it properly is a herringbone job. Ideally either link to a drain/stream, or put the soak away deep enough to break the bottom of the clay layer. Then perforated pipe, gravel above, and then some soil above. What you might well find is that its pretty obvious where the pipes run though, because in hot weather the drained areas will dry out a lot sooner. There isnt an easy answer.