2023 Lawn Thread

[Hobo]

Recent house move and the lawn/s are in a terrible state, spongy everywhere and full of moss & thatch. I signed up with GreenThumb back in November, so they are here next week to to scarify & aerate, and then apply a spring treatment.

Am hoping to have a lawn in reasonable condition for summer.

[renmure]

renmure said:

dhutch said:

Yes, I'm with Robbie of Premier Lawns on this.

Unlike other weeds, moss has no roots, your just killing the foliage which comes in contact with the iron. Mechanical scarifiers will rake the whole whole lawn with enough power to fetch out most moss dead or alive, unlike spot raking by hand. At which point there seems to me to be no advantage to kill the moss you are going to remove anyway. Better to remove the bulk of what you can, get it out of the way, and then treat what is left and and what can't easily be raked out, to stop it spreading back.

I know nothing about moss, other than I have a full lawn of it and can literally pick lumps of it up without disturbing the soil, so that reads like sense to me.

Bad form to quote myself but.... I just checked with the landscaping contractors I'll be using for my front lawn and they confirmed they will be putting down stuff to kill the moss before scarifying a couple of week later then testing the soil before deciding on the seeding and feeding thereafter. They still estimate 2 men for 2 full days to do the scarifying.

[Stedman]

What grass seed are people using?

I’ve previously used Lawnsmith but fancy a change.

Thanks.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

I use the “quality hard-wearing” seed from The Grass Seed Store. They do several lawn mixes, including a finer one if you want.

[dhutch]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

I use the “quality hard-wearing” seed from The Grass Seed Store. They do several lawn mixes, including a finer one if you want.

I've been on Lawnsmiths 'Staygreen' drought tolerant mix as we're on sandstone bedrock and surrounded by mature pines.
The grass stores drought mix contains 50% Kentucky Bluegrass. I don't know it that's a good thing or not!

I also noticed they do a cottage mix with small leaf clover. But presumably you can get small leaf clover and apply that without grass seed.

[Stedman]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

I use the “quality hard-wearing” seed from The Grass Seed Store. They do several lawn mixes, including a finer one if you want.

Thank you!

[Harry Flashman]

Chaps, have thrown down iron sulphate to deal with moss. Whilst doing this I noticed lots of weeds. I don't mind a few, clover especially, but I have buttercups and dandelions everywhere as well.

So next, weed killer. Which one do you chaps use? I have to be a bit careful applying, as I have patches of spring bulbs sprouting in the lawn that I must avoid.

I want to kill a load of stuff off, them scarify, then overseed.

ETA trawled the thread, Weedol it is.

Edited by Harry Flashman on Sunday 26th March 07:44

[Condi]

Harry Flashman said:

I am realising that aside from moss, which I really do not like and am about to treat, I have a pretty "wild lawn" ideal...

Edited by Harry Flashman on Tuesday 21st March 08:40

Harry Flashman said:

Chaps, have thrown down iron sulphate to deal with moss. Whilst doing this I noticed lots of weeds. I don't mind a few, clover especially, but I have buttercups and dandelions everywhere as well.

So next, weed killer. Which one do you chaps use?

Edited by Harry Flashman on Sunday 26th March 07:44

That didn't take very long.

[Harry Flashman]

My "wild lawn" looks too much like a jungle! Had a bit of a shock when I went out to do some moss control yesterday.

I mean, I don't mind a bit of biodiversity, but this was like the Amazon...

I am going to try to leave the clover patches alone though. I like them and they were brilliantly green in last year's drought.

Edited by Harry Flashman on Sunday 26th March 07:59

[dhutch]

[quote=dhutch
But any broadleaf 'Lawn' weedkiller should remove it.

There are basically two brands, you can alternate and either apply to the whole lawn, or spray selectively.

https://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/lawn-weed-killer
[/quote] Yes.

That one of the two available brands.

[MDUBZ]

I’m 2 cuts in and the grass is looking quite good after the effort put in in September and October last year; there are a few small islands of moss however and the broad leaf weeds are starting to come through in a few areas but the grass is looking quite thick with only a few yellow blades; I did add a winter fertiliser a few weeks ago to give it a bit of a boost. Temps are forecast to be down to zero here tonight and then things look like they’ll start to warm up a bit so I can get to work on it.

Short term plan:
Weedol going on next week with a sprayer if the weather ( wind and rain) permit , I don’t want it drifting about in the wind or washing off the leaves so fingers crossed for a decent window, I think it’s warm enough that the weeds are actively growing so the weed killer should be effective and I’ll put a light dusting of lawn sand on the moss impacted areas.. I’ll then give it 2-3 weeks to allow the ground to warm up and reduce risk of a ground frost before scarifying, adding a pre seed fertiliser and then over seeding to get the last of the thinner patches..

[gfreeman]

My project… around 900 square metres of saturated clay. Like a swamp but softer. The soil is pretty poor anyway so trying to retain any of the topsoil would have cost more in machine time than just importing some fresh topsoil and blinding it.
Why won’t it stop raining!?!?
When dry enough I have to grade with my home made grader (yet to be tested in anger), add about 40 tonnes of topsoil and seed. I have been waiting for a dry spell for weeks now - so much for global warming…. Not sure 40 tonnes will be enough but that will go a long way..

Will probably be using Boston Seeds Quality Fine Lawn seed as I don’t know why, but I don’t fancy ryegrass…
It will be cut by Colin the robot - and there is another job to re-establish the perimeter and homing guide wires.

Quite frustrating just staring out the window at grey skies and a sea of mud.

[Stedman]

Has anyone used the Affordable Lawn products?

I’ve just used their wetting agent (I haven’t used one before), it’ll be interesting to see how good it is.

[Evanivitch]

gfreeman said:

My project… around 900 square metres of saturated clay. Like a swamp but softer. The soil is pretty poor anyway so trying to retain any of the topsoil would have cost more in machine time than just importing some fresh topsoil and blinding it.
Why won’t it stop raining!?!?
When dry enough I have to grade with my home made grader (yet to be tested in anger), add about 40 tonnes of topsoil and seed. I have been waiting for a dry spell for weeks now - so much for global warming…. Not sure 40 tonnes will be enough but that will go a long way..

Will probably be using Boston Seeds Quality Fine Lawn seed as I don’t know why, but I don’t fancy ryegrass…
It will be cut by Colin the robot - and there is another job to re-establish the perimeter and homing guide wires.

Quite frustrating just staring out the window at grey skies and a sea of mud.

What are you looking for from the lawn? Seems an awful lot of effort and expense for a block of green. You could have quite a lot of interest and biodiversity with a different approach (looks like a decent spot for a small orchard!)

[Bonefish Blues]

Not adjacent to a pool you couldn't

Too much crap even with lawn!

[gfreeman]

Evanivitch said:

What are you looking for from the lawn? Seems an awful lot of effort and expense for a block of green. You could have quite a lot of interest and biodiversity with a different approach (looks like a decent spot for a small orchard!)

As BB said, we want to avoid crap blowing in the new pool - and we quite like a big expanse of lawn.
We have another area for fruit trees - just planted 3 trees in a mower free zone and have another area for wildlife left to its own devices.

[p1doc]

mowed the lawn yesterday started to snow soo briskly finished now covered with inch of snow- n east scotland lol
tempted by orchard idea

[Snow and Rocks]

gfreeman said:

My project… around 900 square metres of saturated clay. Like a swamp but softer.

Quite frustrating just staring out the window at grey skies and a sea of mud.

I share your pain, I hired a slew digger during the dry spell in February and cleared and levelled this area ready to grass (as well as digging a pond). It's also sticky heavy clay but there is plenty of topsoil and it does eventually dry out ok so we put in some new drains and left the surface fluffed up with the teeth of the digger bucket ready for it to prepared for seed. Since then we seem to have had endless rain and snow.

Luckily (?!) we're halfway up an Aberdeenshire hillside so there's a few weeks at least before anything starts growing but it's still frustrating not being able to get started. We woke up to yet another covering of snow this morning so everything is now absolutely soaking again. Fingers crossed for at least a short dry spell.

[p1doc]

Snow and Rocks said:

. Fingers crossed for at least a short dry spell.

normally between july and august lol

[epsilonvaz]

Lovely day in the SE here and grass is growing well after the ferrous sulphate. Going to start lowering the height in prep for scarification.