My scabby lawn

Gers

The grass in the garden is just awful. I was contemplating having it lifted and re-turfed and then decided to try to save it. I've mown it tonight and it's looking dreadful - is it worth saving or do I give it up?

If it's worth saving how can I do this?







Thanks!

MrsWenger

We had a lawn, laid from turf, which ended up scruffy and full of weeds. Being on clay soil it is also prone to moss. We were thinking of replacing it but booked the local Grensleeves franchise to look at it. The lawn is great now and regularly commented on by visitors. It is about 10 x 11 metres and we pay £23 per visit. We also have it hollow tired and scarifier after moss treatment each year at extra cost but we consider it value for money. Hope this helps...

wallbash

Its a good time of year to rescue lawns, earth is still warm and the rains will come.

We also have it hollow tired and scarifier after moss treatment

Thats the way to go, if you are prepared to spend the money. You could just try the scarifying and then reseed. A rake would be a start BUT its very hard work, hiring would be my compromise. Your lawn will then look awful, but it would give the new seed a good start.

You just have to work what you want to spend. Every penny would be a good investment .
ps if I was to go one step further , sort out your edges first.

Gers

Thanks.

No Greensleeves franchise with 100 miles.

The lawn has been scarified twice this year and reseeded. Some reseeding hasn't been successful.

It's been pouring down here for most of the summer - July had 183% more rain than the norm and August was only slightly better.

What do you mean by 'sort out my edges first'?

Much of the weed is creeping buttercup and most of the black patches are a result of scattering 'weed, seed and feed' stuff.

I_have_spoken

Personally, I'd bite the bullet and get a new turf. My lawn (Glasgow) was moss, creeping buttercup and so muddy and wet there were bull-rushes!



Laid up top of 5cm of grit. Now never gets soft underfoot even after all the rains in 2015 and no weeds a year on!

mavisangelica

MrsWenger wrote: »

We had a lawn, laid from turf, which ended up scruffy and full of weeds. Being on clay soil it is also prone to moss. We were thinking of replacing it but booked the local Grensleeves franchise to look at it. The lawn is great now and regularly commented on by visitors. It is about 10 x 11 metres and we pay £23 per visit. We also have it hollow tired and scarifier after moss treatment each year at extra cost but we consider it value for money. Hope this helps...

Plus one for a Greensleeves type company. We are in the North East and use Greenmaster which is a local company (not a franchise) but when I looked into it, there were a lot of different companies. We just pay £13 every 12 weeks (we just 'pay as we go', we don't do the direct debit) for the front lawn. it was over run with dandelions and we couldn't keep on top of them but the grass now looks really lush and not a dandelion in site. Well worth the money.

wrightk

youve successfully dealt with the weeds by the look of it and scarified which is more than most peoples lawns get!so no more of those treatments.

On the patches give them a good scratching with a metal rake,seed and stamp down.on the other areas give it a very liberal treatment of lawn conditioner (can pick up a box in asda for around 3 quid) dont bother with feed seed weed anymore

try to apply when some persistent rain is forecast for the next day,always better than tap water.then just leave the lawn.it will green up in around a week.

when you go to cut the lawn next,raise your cutting height a couple of cm,this will encourage the finer grasses to come through making the lawn thicker.leave the seed patches until the grass there is quite long,then just trim it,dont take it to the level of the rest of the lawn just yet.

post up some more pics in a week or two.

ive done a quite a few lawns from scratch and laid turf.from the pics the lawn is definately salvageable following steps above,personally wouldnt bother turfing as the lawn is not that bad it just needs a bit of tlc

hope this helps

Gers

Thanks for all the advice and comments.

I've only lived in this place full time since the end of March this year when I finished working, although I moved in the April before. Between those times I was working 100 miles away full time and so 'dossed' at a relatives house during the week. Building work / renovations meant the garden was of secondary concern though now it's moved right up to the top of the list. This is the first time I've owned a garden in my adult life so it's all a very steep learning curve - so all your advice is really appreciated.

Think my preference is to put some work into the lawn and try to save it, getting any kind of maintenance gardening service is almost impossible here.

Thanks again.

Living_proof

I too have a scabby lawn and despite all the TLC that could be given this year it is still full of dandelion type weeds and not very healthy looking. We have given it one last chance with a weed and feed and will rake again when it's had some effect. I wouldn't normally feed so late in the season but after all the odd weather we have had I don't think it will make much difference. Just talking yesterday about these lawn companies and we came up with the conclusion that they must have access to some much stronger chemicals than the general public and maybe the ones the EU banned (i.e. the ones that worked).

Davesnave

Living_proof wrote: »

Just talking yesterday about these lawn companies and we came up with the conclusion that they must have access to some much stronger chemicals than the general public and maybe the ones the EU banned (i.e. the ones that worked).

It's nonsense, accusing companies of breaking the law without a shred of evidence. It's like saying, "That bloke probably gets all the women because he sprays pheremones on himself!"

The chemicals you might require are freely available on-line, but you have to ID them through research first, same as I did. I had acres of weeds to sort out.

Look for agricultural chemicals. You won't find them in B&Q and you won't like the prices either! Start with a company like Progreen.

wrightk

Personally I think the problem is people go for the generic feed weed seed products that just don't cut it. I always alternate between weed killer (verdone) and a lawn conditiomer. I laid a new lawn 3 years ago, treated it once with verdone and every so often treat it to a conditioner.not seen a weed since.

Please let us know how you get on op