2022 Lawn Thread

[RichB]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

And don’t discount the possibility of feeding the lawn. You need a fertiliser designed for autumn use, which will be lower in nitrogen (so as not to encourage too much leafy growth, which would be vulnerable to frost) and higher in phosphorus and potassium (for root growth and winterising, respectively). In fact my intention is to keep feeding every six weeks right through autumn and winter through to spring, pausing only if we get a cold snap. I did this last year and the lawn came out of winter looking better than it ever has done before.

I fed mine this afternoon with Lawnsmith's Autumn fertiliser 10-5-15. A bit later than ideal but with mild weather and rain forecast it will wash in nicely. It's a slow release 2-3 months so that will take me through to the beginning of January when I'll put down some Wintergreen.

I'm reasonably happy with it, given that it really suffered in the summer heat and gets attacked by corvids and squirrels not to mention the bloody mole!

Thursday after clearing leaves ad cutting it on '3' with my Hayter Harrier 48

Edited by RichB on Saturday 29th October 18:25

[nickfrog]

RichB said:

I'm reasonably happy with it

I would be doing cartwheels naked on mine if it was half as neat as yours Rich!!

[RichB]

nickfrog said:

RichB said:

I'm reasonably happy with it

I would be doing cartwheels naked on mine if it was half as neat as yours Rich!!

Sorry, I was a bit fed up with the damage the local wildlife wreaks on it. Sometimes in the morning it looks like the foxes have been trying to dig the Australia!

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Stedman said:

I may have asked you this already but what fertiliser are you using?

I used LS Autumn mid-Sept and wondering if I should use it again..

From autumn through to early spring I use Sportsmaster Autumn 4-12-12. It’s low nitrogen, with a good percentage of phosphorus and potassium - the phosphorus for root growth (which I believe continues even after top-growth has stopped), and the potassium for general hardening and winterising.

The LawnSmith autumn feed is not as low in nitrogen, so I’m not sure I’d continue right through the winter with it, but the key thing is the good percentage of potassium (and the phosphorus is probably plenty as well). Given that we’ve had such mild conditions through October I see no reason not to use it again about six to eight weeks on from your last feed, especially if it’s still growing. And you could use it again in early spring if you want to, before moving on to a higher nitrogen feed when things really warm up.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

dhutch said:

What height would you recommend for a winter cut on a 'family' lawn?

Mature lawn, sandy base, overseeded with Lawnsmiths 'Stay Green' the past few years.

Pretty much as high as a typical rotary mower will go. During winter you only want to keep it tidy and suck up the leaves, leaving the grass with the maximum leaf area to absorb the meagre winter sunlight.

At the moment I’m mowing on the highest-but-one setting on my Hayter rotary, but I’ll move up to the highest setting when growth slows right down.

In general I’m a firm believer that people tend to mow too low. Unless you’re growing specialist grasses intended for bowling greens, cricket creases and golf greens, keeping it a little higher gives a much better looking lawn, to my eyes at least!

That said, RichB is mowing on about the middle setting on his Hayter, and look how good his lawn looks!

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Saturday 29th October 21:18

[dhutch]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

dhutch said:

What height would you recommend for a winter cut on a 'family' lawn?

Mature lawn, sandy base, overseeded with Lawnsmiths 'Stay Green' the past few years.

Pretty much as high as a typical rotary mower will go. During winter you only want to keep it tidy and suck up the leaves, leaving the grass with the maximum leaf area to absorb the meagre winter sunlight.

At the moment I’m mowing on the highest-but-one setting on my Hayter rotary, but I’ll move up to the highest setting when growth slows right down.

In general I’m a firm believer that people tend to mow too low. Unless you’re growing specialist grasses intended for bowling greens, cricket creases and golf greens, keeping it a little higher gives a much better looking lawn, to my eyes at least!

That said, RichB is mowing on about the middle setting on his Hayter, and look how good his lawn looks!

I only ask as our rotary only goes up to 50mm, and I wonder if this is a bit short over winter. I'm not great at raking leaves, but try and take them atleast twice as they do form a thick layer.

[RichB]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

That said, RichB is mowing on about the middle setting on his Hayter, and look how good his lawn looks!

There's no right and wrong answer because there's so many factors coming into play, type of grass, amount of sun, openness of the lawn, type of soil even/drainage etc.. As you say a longer blade allows more photosynthesis in winter low light. But I also feel that if it's too long the base of the leaf never dries out and there's more chance of fungal attack like fusarium, I like to let some air get to the lower part of the grass. I will probably raise the cut to a '4' in a few weeks but it's been so warm here in Hampshire 22.4 today that I'm just treating it as a normal cut.
p.s. I've never properly measured it bu I would guess that a '3' is about 2" so '4' is probably 2.5". I don't know if there's specific height information somewhere on the internet?

[dhutch]

Most places have the min and max hieght in the specs.

I then placed a length of wood between the rear roller and one of the front wheels and measured from that to the blade.

This gave 50mm for the top setting, which is a little less than the spec sheet. The four wheel model has a higher range of settings to the roller model we have.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

dhutch said:

I only ask as our rotary only goes up to 50mm, and I wonder if this is a bit short over winter. I'm not great at raking leaves, but try and take them atleast twice as they do form a thick layer.

Yes, I often wish my rotary could cut higher - not because I’d want to mow longer normally, but because it would be useful for gradually lowering the height of grass that I’ve left unmown for a while (like where the daffodils are).

I think 50mm is still a reasonable height though. RichB makes a good point about long grass being more susceptible to fungal infection like fusarium. The last time I had an attack it was when I’d left the grass uncut over the winter.

[Stedman]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

Stedman said:

I may have asked you this already but what fertiliser are you using?

I used LS Autumn mid-Sept and wondering if I should use it again..

From autumn through to early spring I use Sportsmaster Autumn 4-12-12. It’s low nitrogen, with a good percentage of phosphorus and potassium - the phosphorus for root growth (which I believe continues even after top-growth has stopped), and the potassium for general hardening and winterising.

The LawnSmith autumn feed is not as low in nitrogen, so I’m not sure I’d continue right through the winter with it, but the key thing is the good percentage of potassium (and the phosphorus is probably plenty as well). Given that we’ve had such mild conditions through October I see no reason not to use it again about six to eight weeks on from your last feed, especially if it’s still growing. And you could use it again in early spring if you want to, before moving on to a higher nitrogen feed when things really warm up.

Thank you.

I have just ordered a worm cast reducer and wetting agent from Affordable Lawn.we’ll see how they won’t once they arrive in a few days

[Hobo]

Our front lawn. Not in great condition as full of moss. Put some Renovator Pro on it a week or so back to start killing it off but also have green thumb coming around tomorrow for a treatment (never used them before but thought I’d let them sort it whilst I renovate the house).

Edited by Hobo on Wednesday 2nd November 20:43

[MDUBZ]

^ that looks good.

Received a little delivery of autumn and winter lawn feed yesterday so in an attempt to encourage root growth and to try to keep the moss under control, I marched up and down ‘ministry of silly walk’ style with some aerator shoes and then applied the feed yesterday… Quite hard work and I looked like a tit, I think I’ve convinced myself that a decent aerator would be a good investment…

[dudleybloke]

Gave mine a high cut to level it out this afternoon, I have switched feed to one with lower nitrogen and I am adding 30g of iron sulphate to every 2 gallons of feed.

[Stedman]

Buzzing to get some iron down tomorrow. Sad git

[RichB]

Stedman said:

Buzzing to get some iron down tomorrow. Sad git

Yes, I think I'l do that too. I got the leaves cleared and the grass cut today so it will be ideal.

[blue al]

Clay soil, 20 year old wet lawn
So Do I get my spike shoes out now or keep off it?

It must be compacted by now, so am I helping? or adding more damage?

[Dutch02]

Anyone here have any ideas why every autumn my lawn gets super patchy? It was very thick and lush over spring/autumn



We back onto the woods so we get a huge amount of leaves falling, but I do a weekly (high) mow to collect them up. Really not sure what’s causing it…

[dudleybloke]

What height have you been cutting it to?

[Snow and Rocks]

blue al said:

Clay soil, 20 year old wet lawn
So Do I get my spike shoes out now or keep off it?

It must be compacted by now, so am I helping? or adding more damage?

I would keep off it at the moment while it's soaking wet.

[Dutch02]

dudleybloke said:

What height have you been cutting it to?

I moved it up a setting to ‘4’ at the start of Autumn but it’s not actually cutting the grass at the moment, it’s just the most efficient way to collect the mass of leaves