How to save lawn?

perfume_waggon

Our lawn has seen better days. It's on clay soil and in the wet weather that we had the other year it became a bit of a bog and we ended up re-turfing it.
Even now, if it rains it takes a week to dry out and the grass gets washed away. Lately with the dry weather it has completely dried out leaving bare patches.
I'll try to post a photo, but bear with me as it's my first time! Can anyone suggest cost effective remedy? I don't want to re-turf every year.

xyz123

Difficult to do much with drainage now that turf is laid. Try aerating lawn and then feeding with some good quality feed/weed killer/Moss killer combined (E. G. Evergreen 4in 1 product). . See on YouTube for videos of aerating

macman

Spike it to try to improve the drainage.

Ebe_Scrooge

perfume_waggon wrote: »

we ended up re-turfing it.

Just re-turfing won't cure the problem, only the symptoms.

What you really need to do, if the soil underneath is that bad, is to get some drainage laid into it - or else dig the whole lot out and replace it with something decent. Either of these options is a fairly large - and potentially expensive - task.

As a half-way house, try spiking the lawn as others have suggested. Use a hollow-tined aerator, which removes a series of thin cores from the soil, then brush gardening sand or grit into the holes that are left. This may help the drainage just enough to stop it being such a quagmire. Depending on the size of the lawn it may be an idea to hire a motorised aerator for half a day - doing it by hand is very hard work !

Regular scarifying can also help to a certain extent, as it can help water to drain through the surface, but if it's the soil underneath that's the real problem then you really need to address that first.

JP08

Ebe_Scrooge wrote: »

Use a hollow-tined aerator, which removes a series of thin cores from the soil, then brush gardening sand or grit into the holes that are left. This may help the drainage just enough to stop it being such a quagmire. Depending on the size of the lawn it may be an idea to hire a motorised aerator for half a day - doing it by hand is very hard work !

If it's like our front lawn hand aerating will not be hard work, it will be next to impossible. Clay soil goes like rock when dry (jumping on a fork results in a 2" hole) and clogs up the aerator / sticks to a fork pulling the lawn to pieces something awful when wet.

The only thing I've got to go into the ground on ours is them overshoes with the spikes on - and they won't help much as they don't remove any soil.

Nile

Hi, we move threads if we think they’ll get more help elsewhere (please read the forum rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com"]forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

I’ve moved your thread from the ‘In my home’ board to the ‘Greenfingered’ board, where it is better suited.

Regards

Nile

I_have_spoken

My lawn was a marsh, rushes were taking root. I had 8cm of grit laid then the turf put over that.

I also dug a french drain around the lawn, filling with gravel to stop water coming down the gradient from ending up under the grass.

spaceboy

Use a hollow-tine aerator and pour 50/50 sand/topsoil in all the holes. Might help.

perfume_waggon

Thanks for the replies everyone.