2023 Lawn Thread
Discussion
I'm not a great fan of hollow tinning on domestic lawns , besides having to have the correct equipment or paying Greenthumb a fortune, it's only any use if you want to get some good stuff into the root zone ... sand or top dressing dependent upon your soil , also you have the conundrum do I remove the cores or let the frost break them down ( and leave a mess on my lawn over winter ) ?
A good spiking with a fork is the best action , if you've got a SISS m/c with solid tines or slitting tines rather than hollow would be my preference.
Top Dressing at £100/tonne is getting crazy.
A good spiking with a fork is the best action , if you've got a SISS m/c with solid tines or slitting tines rather than hollow would be my preference.
Top Dressing at £100/tonne is getting crazy.
Edited by glow worm on Friday 22 September 19:19
glow worm said:
I'm not a great fan of hollow tinning on domestic lawns , besides having to have the correct equipment or paying Greenthumb a fortune, it's only any use if you want to get some good stuff into the root zone ... sand or top dressing dependent upon your soil , also you have the conundrum do I remove the cores or let the frost break them down ( and leave a mess on my lawn over winter ) ?
A good spiking with a fork is the best action , if you've got a SISS m/c with solid tines or slitting tines rather than hollow would be my preference.
Top Dressing at £100/tonne is getting crazy.
Cheap and easy to hire a Camon for the day, with either hollow or solid tines. If hollow tining, scarifing over the top of the cores breakes then down quickly, especially in spring with a bit of sun to dry them. A good spiking with a fork is the best action , if you've got a SISS m/c with solid tines or slitting tines rather than hollow would be my preference.
Top Dressing at £100/tonne is getting crazy.
Spiking with a fork is great, and can go deeper than a 'domestic' spec hired aerator, but doing 400sqm like that takes a very long time!
I have a bit of a problem with a newly seeded patch of lawn. Had some work done and ended up with a massive pile of spoil which has been spread and levels over the top of the existing lawn, then topped off with fresh topsoil.
The (so called) landscape gardener then looked at my existing lawn and seeded the new bit.
What has emerged is a much darker green, a coarser leaf blade and grows like topsy- so much so that my robot can hardly keep up, leaving it patchy with longer clumps dotted about. I realise it will take some time to knit into a nice sward but even so his sowing rate must have been less than generous. It was seeded in June.
Obviously he has not come anywhere near matching my existing grass and I don’t really want to kill the lot and start again as it is quite a large area of over an acre. Any sensible suggestions?
The photo is a small part of the area and shows the transition between old and new.
The landscaper has no idea what he used - probably a bag of seed left over from another job.
The (so called) landscape gardener then looked at my existing lawn and seeded the new bit.
What has emerged is a much darker green, a coarser leaf blade and grows like topsy- so much so that my robot can hardly keep up, leaving it patchy with longer clumps dotted about. I realise it will take some time to knit into a nice sward but even so his sowing rate must have been less than generous. It was seeded in June.
Obviously he has not come anywhere near matching my existing grass and I don’t really want to kill the lot and start again as it is quite a large area of over an acre. Any sensible suggestions?
The photo is a small part of the area and shows the transition between old and new.
The landscaper has no idea what he used - probably a bag of seed left over from another job.
Probably as much as anything else that the new section is new seed, in new soil. So much more nutrients, much less compaction, no thatch build up, etc.
Given a few years it will settle and soften, but if you want to speed up the process you like want to improve the old section as much as anything else.
Getting a tiny bit late in the year for over seeding depending where you are, but I would start by testing compaction and thatch thickness.
You could hollow tine now if compaction is an issue, and or do a light scarification if thatch was seen to be bad.
Else mainly at this point I would start be dropping some autumn feed and some iron over the lot and less how it shapes up in spring.
I wouldn't ever kill off the whole off, especially if you where happy with the old lawns condition/growth etc beforehand, but you could do a renovation off the lawn in spring if you wanted to put some time and effort in. Heavy scarification, hollow tine aeration, overseed with your blend of choice, top dress. That sort of thing. Budget?
Given a few years it will settle and soften, but if you want to speed up the process you like want to improve the old section as much as anything else.
Getting a tiny bit late in the year for over seeding depending where you are, but I would start by testing compaction and thatch thickness.
You could hollow tine now if compaction is an issue, and or do a light scarification if thatch was seen to be bad.
Else mainly at this point I would start be dropping some autumn feed and some iron over the lot and less how it shapes up in spring.
I wouldn't ever kill off the whole off, especially if you where happy with the old lawns condition/growth etc beforehand, but you could do a renovation off the lawn in spring if you wanted to put some time and effort in. Heavy scarification, hollow tine aeration, overseed with your blend of choice, top dress. That sort of thing. Budget?
What was in the spoil ? Builders Rocks & Rubble ? If so I think you've created a headache for the future. Water hydraulics will cause rocks to raise in time and will create bald patches and damage to anything cutting it . New builds are the worse , builders just dump their crap and cover it with a bit of top soil .You'll also have a heck of job getting rid of coarse grasses that don't match your existing sward , because the rhizomes roots will be hard to kill off and just come back ... Sorry for being so gloomy 
.
.Thanks for the advice - the spoil was from a pool excavation, mostly silty clay. Before it was freshly topsoiled it was dug through to to old lawn/topsoil and mixed up a fair bit before being graded off and topsoiled. Used a 2 tonne mini digger so it had some reasonable compaction but not too much.
I will probably leave till the spring, dethatch, feed and over seed and hope it all starts to blend.
Colin the robot will just have to work longer hours…
I will probably leave till the spring, dethatch, feed and over seed and hope it all starts to blend.
Colin the robot will just have to work longer hours…
Edited by gfreeman on Wednesday 27th September 12:52
Waiting for seed to germinate in the patches and after over seeding is killing me, esp as the grass that was there after scarifying is doing really well with all the rain we’ve had. Thoughts on mowing? I had added some top dressing so I figure I could water and wait for the grass blades to dry before giving it a trim so the seed doesn’t get consumed by the mower (rotary) - I figure a cut now will also give the new grass access to more light when they finally show themselves?
Howard- said:
When is it going to be too late to seed some bare patches for winter? Have I got perhaps a couple of weeks yet?
Also can anyone recommend and easy to use and pet friendly autumn/winter feed?
Timing will depend on location: you want soil temps consistently above 10C for a few weeks and for it to be damp.Also can anyone recommend and easy to use and pet friendly autumn/winter feed?
Ease of application will depend on what equipment you have and the area you want to cover.. you can use granular, I just went for a miracle gro product this year as i saw some on offer At my local garden centre, but have used A1 and lawnsmith previously. If you have a spreader ( can be done by hand on smallish areas but it can be difficult to get an even spread, or a liquid if you have a sprayer.
Well...
https://www.itv.com/news/2023-10-03/easy-life-say-...
...I hope they don't find out about Flymo's robot range of lawn care products.
https://www.itv.com/news/2023-10-03/easy-life-say-...
...I hope they don't find out about Flymo's robot range of lawn care products.
Having seemingly spent all spring and summer on a mission to turn my front moss into a front garden by scarifying the life out of it then re-seeding it I've ended up starting another project to put some bollard lights down the driveway. That involved letting rip with a turf lifter machine today and it was interesting to get a look at what's under there. Hopefully once all the electrics are done by the end of the week and the turf is back down it should all blend back together again. Never used a turf lifting machine before but it sure as heck makes light work of things.
myvision said:
Is it tool late to rake and scarify now?
i'm based up in North Lincolnshire.
I'm no expert, but if the grass is still growing, no harm in a light mechanical rake/verticut/scarification but unless is very used it I wouldn't do any deep or drastic at this time of year as there's only maybe a month of reasonable growing left to recover. It's likely pretty boarderline for germination if you where thinking of a heavy rake and overseed so unless money is no object, I would only seed small patches that are particularly bad. i'm based up in North Lincolnshire.
Others will have there own thoughts hopefully.
Agree, a light scarifying and an autumn/winter feed to promote some growth should still be fine. If you go too hard/deep and have to patch larger areas you might be disappointed if my results so far are anything to go by: I seeded some patches 2 weeks ago and it has been a bit hit and miss. Anything in the shade just isn't showing any signs of growth, and if it hasn't by the weekend I suspect it probably won't. The forecast is good for the coming week so if you have a fast germinating variety and you're not in shade you might get away with it.
We've just given our Magnolia tree a considerable haircut and it has uncovered a shady area of the grass which is very patchy, so I'm going to overseed and top-dress at lunchtime and hope for the best, now that sun can get to that area
The rest of the lawn looks pretty solid for winter and it'll be getting its autumn feed at the same time.
The rest of the lawn looks pretty solid for winter and it'll be getting its autumn feed at the same time.
Howard- said:
We've just given our Magnolia tree a considerable haircut and it has uncovered a shady area of the grass which is very patchy, so I'm going to overseed and top-dress at lunchtime and hope for the best, now that sun can get to that area
The rest of the lawn looks pretty solid for winter and it'll be getting its autumn feed at the same time.
Absolutely no harm in this sort of repair/patching, you have nothing to loose other than the cost of the seed, which for the odd patch (or even a whole small lawn) is negligible. I did a bit of that sort of thing three weeks ago and it has taken really well, other than a bit the dog/foxes got to, patched that bit two weeks ago and its just starting to think about a few shoots but that's about it. We're on the Wirral, so Northwest but semi coastal. Gets reasonable sun for a few hours a day but not all day sun.The rest of the lawn looks pretty solid for winter and it'll be getting its autumn feed at the same time.
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