Now the garden has woken from its winter slumber, follow my tips to a lusher lawn
The sun has come out, finally, and what a joy it is to feel its warming rays. After a tough winter, gardens are waking up at last and starting to grow. The lawn, centrepiece of so many plots, has taken a good battering with snow, frost and saturation, but with a little TLC it will soon spring back into shape.
So here are my top 10 tips to maintaining a healthy turf for the season ahead.
1:
Get cutting: As soon as growth starts and if it’s not sopping wet, commence mowing. For your first cut you can set the blade a little higher to keep things gentle. Regular mowing is the single most important factor in lawn maintenance and your best weapon against the weeds taking over.
2:
Keep the blades high for the first cut and reduce height gradually over the next few cuts. The ideal height for grass for average lawns is around an inch – you would only cut closer than this on a very fine bowling green-type lawn.
3:
Scarify – this means giving your lawn a good scratching over with a spring-tine rake. This will gather up all the winter debris and thatch that has built up.
4:
Aerate – soggy or compacted lawns can be improved with some aeration. For small lawns, just give it a good prodding with a fork and brush in some sand for improved drainage.
5:
Weed – regular mowing will do most of your weeding for you but it’s a good idea at this stage to remove tap-rooted weeds such as dandelions and dock weeds completely.
Use a knife or weeding fork and dig out. If you’re left with a large bare patch, this will soon be colonised ■ You can plant summer flowering bulbs, corms and tubers such as lilies, cannas, ranunculus and gladioli, left, into pots or directly into the ground.
■ Place cardboard collars around brassica veg such as cabbages and broccoli to prevent cabbage root fly laying eggs.