The 2024 Lawn Thread

[Wildfire]

brums evil twin said:

This weekend was spring lawn jobs

2 very short cuts (well as short as my little mower would go)
2 passes with electric spring tine (cheap electric scarifier with the spring tine attachment)
spiked
lawnsmiths hardwearing seed
lawnsmiths spring fertiliser
and top dressed with a light covering of compost

all equals a lovely new camouflage design!!!!

Did almost the same thing, but I aerated and without the top dressing. Mine is ok.. but there the previous owner had a large trampoline in one corner and a play area in the other that were totally dead. I got sparse covering back last year. Hopefully this year it will look a bit better.

[dudleybloke]

I managed to mow it the other day, took it to 35mm and put some spring granular feed down.
No moss this year as I gave it a couple of doses of iron through the winter.
Once it's dried out again I'm going to cut it lower, overseed and give a light top dressing.

[The Three D Mucketeer]

My last cut was a 10mm , that was 10 days ago , never stopped raining since .... I was going to do the edges this afternoon , but it's started to rain again....Think I'll start building an Ark .

[Stedman]

My verticutter attachment turned up last week. gave it a crack and then went away for the weekend. I must say, both lawns look pretty ruddy good. Impressed with it

[brums evil twin]

After this years spring work - I have decided I need a new mower

Looking for a cylinder that has scarfing cassette attachment - any recommendations, I guess I will be looking for 2nd hand

[Nick_MSM]

brums evil twin said:

After this years spring work - I have decided I need a new mower

Looking for a cylinder that has scarfing cassette attachment - any recommendations, I guess I will be looking for 2nd hand

Can't go wrong with an Atco Balmoral, can use the Allett cassettes then too if you fancy the verticutter etc in the future.

This is the current status of my front lawn, the rear lawns are pretty much similar although I did heavily scarify one over the weekend and overseeded. About to start cylinder mowing shortly as the ground is firming up.

[The Three D Mucketeer]

brums evil twin said:

After this years spring work - I have decided I need a new mower

Looking for a cylinder that has scarfing cassette attachment - any recommendations, I guess I will be looking for 2nd hand

If you're buying new then ALLETT, expensive so be prepared for over a £1,300 for 14" classic with a Chinese engine, if you want a Briggs Stratton then £2k (extra for additional cassettes . Optionally go battery electric but my 17" cost over £3.5k.

If you can get hold of a second hand all the better , ALLETT bought the IP of ATCO some years ago but not the name, so the ATCO you can buy now is not really an "ATCO" (as in the ATLAS CHAIN COMPANY"). It would have to be a later ATCO Balmoral to take cassettes , I had a Balmoral in the 1990s at the cylinder was fixed. ALLETT mowers were sold under various names in the 2000s including ATCO,WEBB and QUALCAST... usually dependent upon the engine . My WEBB Kensington is really and ALLETT K14 with a Kawaski engine , and ALLETT H14 has Honda, ALLETT B14 has Briggs Stratton and ALLETT Classic has Chinese .
I get my blade cassettes re-sharpened every couple of years, I have 6 blade, 10 blade ,verti cutter, scarifier and brush cassettes .

[dudleybloke]

More bloody rain!

[McGee_22]

dudleybloke said:

More bloody rain!

Mowed yesterday because it was forecast.

[brums evil twin]

The Three D Mucketeer said:

brums evil twin said:

After this years spring work - I have decided I need a new mower

Looking for a cylinder that has scarfing cassette attachment - any recommendations, I guess I will be looking for 2nd hand

If you're buying new then ALLETT, expensive so be prepared for over a £1,300 for 14" classic with a Chinese engine, if you want a Briggs Stratton then £2k (extra for additional cassettes . Optionally go battery electric but my 17" cost over £3.5k.

If you can get hold of a second hand all the better , ALLETT bought the IP of ATCO some years ago but not the name, so the ATCO you can buy now is not really an "ATCO" (as in the ATLAS CHAIN COMPANY"). It would have to be a later ATCO Balmoral to take cassettes , I had a Balmoral in the 1990s at the cylinder was fixed. ALLETT mowers were sold under various names in the 2000s including ATCO,WEBB and QUALCAST... usually dependent upon the engine . My WEBB Kensington is really and ALLETT K14 with a Kawaski engine , and ALLETT H14 has Honda, ALLETT B14 has Briggs Stratton and ALLETT Classic has Chinese .
I get my blade cassettes re-sharpened every couple of years, I have 6 blade, 10 blade ,verti cutter, scarifier and brush cassettes .

Bloody Hell - my simple solution to look in the second hand adverts has now just got very confusing. wanted to find a used one, hopefully with additional cassettes might be harder than it looks

[Semmelweiss]

Balmoral is the simplest answer.

I gave two away, plus the scarifying cassette to a friend, last year.

(Since getting a robot mower, I've never used them. The first and last cuts of the year are done by my rotary with a roller (Rotarola) and I have a dedicated verticutter/scarifier.

I gave up on ornamental lawns just before Covid kicked in. Too much times, too many times per week).

[brums evil twin]

Now to find a balmoral with cassette then.

[Semmelweiss]

Look for them on eBay. You can pick up "broken" ones that just need a carb clean. I have had at least half a dozen that I've never paid more than £50.

[ukwill]

Missed out on this last year as was too late / sold out, but managed to get in on it this year

https://thelawnpack.co.uk/

Looking forward to giving it a go.

[honest_delboy]

After I got returfed last year my front and back lawns are getting loads of these grow through. I guess I can’t now them , so weed killer ? Or do I need to pull each one

[johnpsanderson]

Thinking I may be the only person on this thread still wishing for more rain! Thanks to the wet winter our incredibly dry lawn has actually come back to something resembling green. Mowed for the first time this year a few weeks ago, then used the newly purchased Westland lawn spreader to put down some weed/feed.

Last week I aerated by hand (the hollow tine fork still failing to cut plugs, each time just jams up straight away) and scattered the rich black contents of the composter over the driest part of the lawn as top dressing.

Amazingly, this a picture of what is a much better looking lawn than plenty of previous years!

[Gtom]

Bought the family home about a month ago and this is currently the state of it. It’s the worst I have ever seen it for being water logged (the 30+ years that I can remember).

It’s only bad in the muddy area at the top of the garden and in the centre spreading about 8 foot each way. I have been out to it tonight and taken these two photos and it stinks, like a proper stale bog.

I have bought a 1000mm long 20mm sds bit and drilled the garden as an extreme version on aerating it, I managed maybe ten holes on a 5ah battery but it seemed to make little difference. I’m going to have another bash tomorrow night with my corded drill and see if more holes will help.

I have no idea why it won’t naturally drain down the garden! I don’t know if drilling say ten holes wide from the top to the bottom will help the water get away or if I’m going to end up putting some land drain in once it’s dried out a bit.

[Gad-Westy]

tperry said:

We are just coming to the end of a renovation on our house and would like to start getting the lawn in order but could do with some advice. The problem is it's full of rubble. I'm slowly picking up the bigger bits, but we still have loads of the smaller bits which my lawnmower is hating me for. The lawn is fairly sizeable 0.5 - 0.75 of an arce. I've started raking sections but its slow going and the results are not ideal. Do any tools exist for this kind of job?

I don't have much of a budget this year so would just like to clean it up to start with.

I don't have an answer for this but quoting in the hope someone else does. Our garden has a an absolute load of rubble hiding under the surface. We live in an area that was once a mining village. The cottages were all knocked down maybe 50-60 years ago and it's all been turned into a nature reserve now but I get the impression that not a lot of the debris made it very far after demolition. I probably removed about 250-500kg per year by hand but still constantly finding new. Would be great to hear some easier or more permanent methods for dealing with it.

[The Three D Mucketeer]

Gad-Westy said:

tperry said:

We are just coming to the end of a renovation on our house and would like to start getting the lawn in order but could do with some advice. The problem is it's full of rubble. I'm slowly picking up the bigger bits, but we still have loads of the smaller bits which my lawnmower is hating me for. The lawn is fairly sizeable 0.5 - 0.75 of an arce. I've started raking sections but its slow going and the results are not ideal. Do any tools exist for this kind of job?

I don't have much of a budget this year so would just like to clean it up to start with.

I don't have an answer for this but quoting in the hope someone else does. Our garden has a an absolute load of rubble hiding under the surface. We live in an area that was once a mining village. The cottages were all knocked down maybe 50-60 years ago and it's all been turned into a nature reserve now but I get the impression that not a lot of the debris made it very far after demolition. I probably removed about 250-500kg per year by hand but still constantly finding new. Would be great to hear some easier or more permanent methods for dealing with it.

I would suggest hiring a rotavator (not a tiller) , then rake / pick up out the rubble ...No easy way ... You'll find over the years rubble will work it's way up in the ground , causing bare patches and damage to your mower , so getting it out is the best action. Builder rubble is terrible, especially plastic/metal ties than go for yards in length.
I would also suggest installing a herring bone drainage system with 3" plastic holed drain pipes with a fall either into a drain, off your property or a sump hole .
If the soil is poor , get a few tonnes of quality top soil, the sandier the better (especially if you live in clay area). Only then consider seeding or turfing.

Edited by The Three D Mucketeer on Thursday 11th April 09:35

[dhutch]

Yeah its a tough one, but a rotavator would probably by my route too. It doesn't have to be perfect, but if you get the half bricks out of the top 4" (100mm) that will help. Then ideally a inch or two of 'root zone' (basically topsoil and sharp sand/grit) on top if budget allows.

Smaller stones will not be an issue and or will just buy themselves, the only things I would expect to work its way up are plastics and rubbers, stone certainly should stay were its put and brick should be fine.