UK gardening - messy lawn!!!

Author

messy lawn!!!

ostano

2005-07-27, 11:21 pm

recently moved into our new home and the garden is a mess!!! the
previous owner laid cheap grass seed on VERY uneven ground and we now
have a garden full of divots, holes and weeds and is quite established.
without ripping it all up and starting again by laying new turf
(expense!!) what are our options for the quickest and easiest solution
for a lush lawn!!!???!!!

--
ostano

pied piper

2005-07-28, 5:21 am

"ostano" <ostano.1suxjy@gardenbanter.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ostano.1suxjy@gardenbanter.co.uk...
>
> recently moved into our new home and the garden is a mess!!! the
> previous owner laid cheap grass seed on VERY uneven ground and we now
> have a garden full of divots, holes and weeds and is quite established.
> without ripping it all up and starting again by laying new turf
> (expense!!) what are our options for the quickest and easiest solution
> for a lush lawn!!!???!!!
>
>
> --
> ostano

How do u know he used cheap grass seed?

John

2005-07-28, 6:21 am

In article <MB%Fe.17056$Hd4.12532@newsfe2-gui.ntli.net>,
"pied piper" <intercityfirm@millwall.com> wrote:

>
> How do u know he used cheap grass seed?

My 2p: (1) perseverance (2) regular mowing (3) daily attention. Oh --
and chuck more seed at it: you can now buy "Lawn in a bucket" from
places like B&Q, made by the great pbi company - I've used their stuff
for decades.

In defence of the previous owner (though this may not apply in your
case): This year, I set about making a lawn in the brand new "garden"
of a house my son was renting. Honestly: I have never seen "soil" like
this: when it was not like concrete, it was like lumpy HEAVY porridge
(because of all the rain we were having and the NON-EXISTENT drainage).
It was also completely sterile: not a single worm, and just deep-rooted
docks for weeds. I put hours of heavy labour into that tiny patch (25
sq metres), digging it deep, all over three times, adding a ton of
sharp sand, trying to level it, and finally seeding it (with a lawn in a
bucket). Again partly due to the awful weather we've had, it took ages
to sprout, but now, about 9 months after I started, it is starting to
look like a lawn [and my son is about to move out!].

I'd love to have been in the position you're in, i.e. to be able to go
out every day and check it over, water it where needed, pull out
nefarious weeds, sprinkle nice soil over depressions, re-seed in
patches, rake it, cut it (but I live 20 miles away so I've only done all
this every other week, and my son, as you have guessed, is shall we say
not interested.) As you can see, I like lawns.

Finally I'll remind you of the old gardener's tip: the more regularly
you cut it, the better it will look. (But you have to feed and water
too -- the bowling greens in the park don't just get cut every day --
they're fed and watered when they need it too.)

Lucky you: good luck

John

Mike Lyle

2005-07-28, 9:21 am

ostano wrote:
> recently moved into our new home and the garden is a mess!!! the
> previous owner laid cheap grass seed on VERY uneven ground and we
now
> have a garden full of divots, holes and weeds and is quite
> established. without ripping it all up and starting again by laying
> new turf (expense!!) what are our options for the quickest and
> easiest solution for a lush lawn!!!???!!!

Adding to what John said, the previous owner may not be wholly to
blame: if it was a new site, he may have thought he'd expended
incredible effort in levelling it before sowing, only to discover a
few months later that it had settled unevenly. Cheap seed is quite
good enough for most people: it simply tends to have a high
proportion of ryegrass, which is good and tough, but won't result in
one of those story-book fine lawns.

I'd just relax. Fill up the worst holes as suggested, weed and feed,
mow twice a week if you can (no shorter than three quarters of an
inch), and you'll be amazed what you've got by next spring. Whatever
you do, don't get sucked in to spending too much money: with
patience, you can have a good lawn for nothing.

A lawn doesn't have to be perfectly flat, of course. I don't know how
uneven yours is, but if it's very bad, chop any bumps off and use
them to fill the hollows, reseeding the bare patches. (You don't have
to do this all in the same year if it's really daunting.) Ideally,
you lift the turf from these places before you do the engineering,
and put it back afterwards; but it'll come out right in the end if
you don't -- it'll look a bit manky in patches for a few months,
that's all. Next year, if it turns out to be less level than you
hoped, a light annual top-dressing of sand and loam will even it up
soon enough.

--
Mike.

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