Grass!

No, not a term of abuse inside a correctional institution but a common response to the question “What type of lawn do you have?” To many householders, grass is grass full stop. It will look reasonable (from a distance) when mowed but upon close inspection, most home lawns will have a selection of weeds and clover and the odd patch of coarse grass. Lawns shaded by tall trees and buildings and those with poor drainage will probably have quite a bit of moss too.

We could call this a ‘normal’ lawn. The other types being the golf green type lawn, the luxury lawn and, sadly, the worn out lawn. For most people the perfect lawn would be the type seen on the golf course green: close cropped, weed free, and a beautiful colour. These lawns are achievable at home although the work involved in the initial preparation and the continued maintenance may be excessive unless you want to practise putting every night, have too much time on your hands or have a form of obsessive compulsive disorder.

There are different types of lawn grass with finer Bents and Fescues being chosen for the golf course and luxury lawn “Kids, get off the lawn!” and Meadow Grasses and Ryegrass being mixed with Bents and Fescues to provide a more hard wearing utility lawn “Kids, why don’t you play in the garden!”

The golf course green needs excellent drainage and this is usually built in with the correct slope and plenty of sand in the soil layer before the lawn is even laid. The luxury lawn is achievable with slightly less effort although homeowners with children and/or dogs shouldn’t attempt to create one of these unless they want the other parents at school whispering “Did you know that the children aren’t even allowed to play on the lawn!”

I have heard people mention that they want re-turf to improve the appearance of their lawn. This will provide an instant lush lawn but it may be short lived if there are underlying problems with drainage. Before resorting to that relatively major turfing exercise, there are easy steps that you can take to remedy the problems and improve the grass. Re-engineering your home lawn to build in sufficient soakaways is not really feasible but there are ways to improve the drainage at home such as aeration with a petrol driven lawn aerator. This will remove plugs of soil that can then be filled with sand. If you have a lawn that is always waterlogged, you will definitely have to do that slightly labour intensive stage first.

If you have been a bit lazy in the past and have regularly left the grass to grow to around six inches before you cut it then you may well have to hire a scarifier to scrape out all the old thatch that is lying on top of the soil. You will need to do this if the thatch is more that around a quarter of an inch thick.

If you don’t need to improve the drainage or scarify the lawn, go straight to your computer and search for lawn sand or more specifically GEM Weed & Feed + Mosskiller. This should be done in the spring to mid-Summer, by the way. Order enough for your lawn and include the drop spreader tool in your purchase. You may be tempted to save some money and spread the lawn sand by hand but you won’t be able to get an even distribution and spreading too thickly in some areas will lead to scorching and a slower recovery. You will be using the drop spreader every year so consider that cost will effectively be spread over a number of years.

Choose a dry day to apply the lawn sand, preferably four or five days after the grass has been cut to allow the weeds to grow back a little. This ensures that the lawn sand gets trapped on the leaves of the weeds. I was going to suggest that you choose a three or four day period of dry weather but in Britain we can’t really plan for that!

As usual, follow the instructions on the packet which will tell you to mark out lines with string so you know that you are not overdosing any particular area. March up and down with the drop spreader, covering the entire lawn. Avoid walking on the grass until the lawn sand has been left on for a couple of days. If it hasn’t rained after that time, water the lawn.

Within a few days you will notice that the weeds and moss will have blackened and withered. You may see areas of grass that have died off due to an over-zealous application of lawn sand but this will recover. If there is a lot of moss that has turned black this will have to be removed using a scarifier. Within a couple of weeks the grass will have deepened in colour. After another few weeks, you will have noticed that the lawn has markedly improved. Any patches of bare soil can be dressed with some grass seed and it doesn’t hurt to lightly sprinkle grass seed all over the remaining lawn. Don’t do this too soon after applying the lawn sand as the chemicals will stop the seed from germinating properly and don’t apply too thickly as the grass will suffer from damping off which is mould growth in densely sown seeds.

Sowing grass seed a bit like watching the proverbial pot. You are tempted to look at it every day but can’t see a thing going on. After around a week you get bored and forget about it. Then, lo and behold, at around the ten day mark there are loads of lovely bright green shoots! Marvellous. You have finally grown something in the garden! Remember to avoid cutting too low for the first couple of cuts and remember that in order to keep the grass looking green you will have to water it every two to three days during the hot weather. This is a must if there are large trees around the perimeter as they will take all the moisture from the soil.