Lawn care

[Mungler]

Ok, so prompted by a special on at Lidl, I bought an electric scarifier and aerator together with a load of lawn care shizzle.

The farmer I shoot with is quite funny; he says that there’s nothing much to farming beyond nitrogen, sunlight and water. I did a feed and weed a couple of times on the lawn at our last house and was amazed at the results.

Currently our lawn is all over the shop; what with the dog (female) and reclaiming to turf (from being a rockery) it’s very patchy and odd under foot - the long standing lawn area is solid under foot but the new areas are very spongey.

I once idly watched a documentary on golf course greens care whilst on the bog and I think the gist was to roller, aerate, sprinkle with sand (what type I don’t know) and so as to build up the integrity of the lawn. Another approach adopted by my grandparents was to sprinkle the lawn once a year with 6x.

So, the question is - who here is a lawn expert (and cradentials please) and what do you do to make your lawn the best.

Cheers all

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Weed and feed work well but not until the grass is growing, i.e. when the temperature rises a bit.

[team tractor]

I pay a company £15 a quarter to sort it. The lawn looks great and they know what they’re doing.

i cut it and water it  

 

they use use liquid and granulated depending on the weather

Edited March 18, 2018 by team tractor

[Walker570]

Weed, feed and cutting to a set height regularly usually works unless the base ground beneath the lawn has some hidden 'archeology'  eg old wall footings etc.  I had a brown patch every year across my rear lawn years ago which I maintained as a putting green.  Eventually dug a spit out and found the base of an old wall from eons ago about 18 inches down.

If you have more important things to do ...like going stalking as above, get a lawn specialist in to do the job for you,  seems lots about these days.  With the equivalent of 3 acres to mow I'm to tight to go that way.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Walker570

[amateur]

My father was the lawn guru and used to turn all his lawns into bowling green standard.

He would initially give it a light cut in the spring, aerate it with a garden fork (I think that he had one of those special hole tools as well) and brush in lawn sand (which I believe contains a fertiliser as well) and regularly use feed and weed. He would also hand weed out the daisies and dandelions on an individual basis. If his bitch wet on the lawn, he would rush out with a bucket of water to dilute the pee and avoid the brown patch. Every year he would sprinkle on some fine grass seed to replace the coarse stuff and when cutting the lawn, would not scalp it in summer and keep it well watered

As I say, all of this produced some excellent lawns.

I can't be ***** to follow his example, so my lawns are coarse, full of weeds and brown patches from the two Scottie bitches

 

[GingerCat]

I get some chap round once every 4 months . Doesn't cost very much and it's weed free and green all year.

[proud dad]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02vnhx4

[Mungler]

Thanks chaps - I’m going to get someone in (or get the wife to do it)

[Dave at kelton]

Used green thumb to treat it every few months and then just has to cut it, not too short! Only major thing was I once hired a petrol scarifier after they had moss killed. Could not believe how much **** came out, grab bags full. After that the lawn went into overdrive and never looked back. 

[Mice!]

23 minutes ago, Mungler said:

Thanks chaps - I’m going to get someone in (or get the wife to do it)

don't do that, summer is all about trying to make your lawn look amazing, my Grandad did as amateur says above, best time to weed and feed is normally autumn but i will still have a scarify in a few weeks once its warmed up, get rid of all the dead stuff from over winter, just don't use a box to collect it, its easier to rake into piles. Then pick up.

[das]

Get a strong garden fork, push it vertical, pull the handle about 4-5" and pull out fork. Move down about 4" and repeat.
The action arerates the subsoil.

I used to operate a tractor mounted VertiDrain on golf and bowling greens, same action but about £15000 more than the fork.
 

Edited March 18, 2018 by das