Get a pristine lawn
Starting this spring, why not take a fresh look at how you look after your lawn? You’ll be amazed at the results you can achieve
The lawn is the most misunderstood part of the garden and the one we most take for granted. All year round it supplies us with a wonderful splash of green.
It is simply a cultivated area of one of our most enduring and adaptable plants, and if nature can grow grass so successfully, we can too!
First though, we need to understand how nature does it, but with these simple steps you’ll see measurable improvements.
They’re simple, efficient and effective because they work with what grass naturally needs – good soil, sufficient nutrients, air and water.
Learn
Even many gardening experts don’t really understand lawns. In fact, there’s more rubbish talked about lawns than any other aspect of domestic gardening – so it’s time to step back and separate out the nonsense and myths from the truth. Fortunately, finding the latter is easy.
Look at nature and see how grass grows naturally. We need to replicate this as much as possible in our gardens. Try to understand the environment that grass needs – soil conditions, oxygen, light and water – and the nutrients that are vital to strong growth. Working with these is simple when you understand why and how.
Plan
Lawn care tends to be a reactive rather than a proactive process. We ignore our lawn through the winter and only take notice when we realise that it has started to grow again!
By then it can be too late to do
some of the basic things that’ll give you a beautiful lawn right through until next winter. So this year let’s do it differently!
Planning is everything and right now, in March, is one of the best times to do it. Use a diary or wall planner to revise what needs to be done and when. A spring feed, repairing the soilso and sorting out the thatch can all be done in the next few weeks. And you’ll see the benefits very quickly, too.
And breathe…
One of the most important and beneficial things you can do for your lawn is to help it to breathe – but I’m talking about aerating below the surface, not up on top.
The best thing to use is a hollow-tine aerating tool, one that carefully removes tubes of soil without disturbing the surrounding earth. These work better than garden forks which are designed for digging, not aerating your lawn. An ordinary fork will actually squash the compacted soil even more.
Once you have hollow-tined, you don’t need to fill up the holes with sand (finding a correct sand with the right particle size and shape is hard enough). Instead, you need the air to work on the soil microbes and bacteria. By leaving the holes open, the oxygen can work for many months. Let your soil breathe!
Grooming
I’m talking about scarification. Some peopl people avoid it because it makes a mess, but that doesn’t last long, and is replaced by beautiful, strong, renewed growth, if done on a regular basi basis (not every three years as sometimes advised).
Scarifying is our way of pruning natural grass (we prune other plants and know what results that brings) and it also thins out the thatch layer. Remember though, your lawn needs some thatch to deter moss, protect the soil from the effects of the sun but still allow rainwater to percolate through and fertiliser in to break it down efficiently.
A wire rake is good for tidying, but to scarify use a proper machine. This slices through the shoots and stolons (prunings), and gives you thick grow-back. You can buy or rent one easily.
Feed
Learn from nature – where grass flourishes despite harsh conditions, it’s because it can store plenty of nutrients in longer leaves. But in our gardens, every time we mow we steal valuable food stores from the plants. So it’s only fair and sensible to put
some of this back!
Aim to feed your lawn four times a year (even in winter it will enjoy a simple spray o of ferrous sulphat sulphate). Ideally, your lawn needs a
different ratio of phosphate, potassium and nitrogen depending on each season, but finding this can be tricky. If so, go for a moderate nitrogen (5 to 20 per cent) feed and, with luck, it will also have elements of phosphate and potassium as well. Also remember that lawns love consistency – and a feed only lasts eight to 12 weeks, so plan for the whole year.
So right now, scarify first and then apply your spring feed – your ‘pruned’ grass will soon fill back up without you having to waste time and money on top dressing and overseeding.
The two Ms: mowing and moss
Good mowing is really simple. Never remove more than one third of the current length of grass – this then leaves it with some nutrients and intrinsic strength. And never use a blunt blade. I recommend sharpening your mower blade regularly – you’ll really notice the difference.
And moss? Buy a specific moss product such as sulphate of iron instead of a combined feed, weed and moss product as these make it hard to use the correct amounts. And apply after scarification, not before, to make sure it gets to the base of the moss plant. Don’t aim to remove all the moss in one go. Let a combination of scarifying, moss killer and a strong, healthy lawn do the job.