2023 Lawn Thread

I've got a lawn that had a fair bit of moss, I scarified hard and reseeded in late autumn, then used iron sulphate a month or so ago and raked up the blackened moss.

There's a lot less moss now and only slightly thin in places.

I think soon I'll use some sort of feed seed and weed product.

I'm considering also getting a hollow tine aerator, its clay soil that I'd say looks pretty compacted, it's also a fairly shaded lawn but does get sun some of the day.

Is the aerator the right thing to do? Wondering since no-one has mentioned it in all the moss talk.

I had to attack our back garden at the start of March. I work away and you couldn’t walk in the garden without being caked in a very clay like mud. With 2 dogs and 3 ducks it took a hammering over winter. Carpets of loss and duck pooh due to not being able to wash the stuff back into the soil.

So on March 4th I………

Scarified as best I could with a rake. One I had ordered never turned up and none available locally. I removed 6 rubble buckets of matted moss, dead grass and duck pooh.

I then scarified a bit more and levelled out the low points with compost.

Seeded the whole area with some kind of tough grass (I forget the name at the minute) and then covered over with more compost and then flattened by hand. It was not a fun day.

Then we had all the frost, it was worth it to try and get a start as otherwise we wouldn’t be able to go in the garden till the end of May.

First scarify….


Compost top layer the morning after….


2 weeks after starting….


I’m surprised there is anything growing so very pleased currently. Hoping for a few sunny days and a bit of progress before doing it again in May when hopefully there is a bit of a base to work from.

Is watering it with duck pond pooh water worthwhile ? I’ve been told it’s a great fertiliser but am worried the ground will have too much maybe ?

Normally our grass has been naturally great, this is the first time in 10 years I’ve had to put any real effort in.

Dave!

The problem is his feet will have essentially rust on them, which then transfers to carpets, furnishings etc when wet and doesn't come off easily. Best idea would be to wash his feet when he comes back in the house for the first couple of days at least. After that it's probably fine. Less of an issue if the weather is dry.

Could I let our cat do it himself perhaps?

Any tips on dealing with clover? “Lawn” seems to be as much clover as it is grass.

Lawn is going to get its first cut of the year this afternoon as it has been growing quite a bit and it has finally stopped raining. Moved in last year and plan to tackle the garden over the next couple of months.

One tip for clover is to add a drop of washing up liquid to the weed killer. Clover leaves are hydrophobic (water just runs off) so the detergent will help it stick to the leaves.

Succumbed to temptation, gave the lawn a cut on the second setting to really bring the height of the grass down. There was much more moss than I thought, so done a green scarify as last treatments didnt work effectively only killing some moss. Pulled up a good chunk and then did a whole lawn treatment to get to the deeper moss that may have survived from the longer grass. Will see how it goes over this week, or if I need some stronger stuff!

Luckily the back seems to have avoided the moss issue (maybe from being slightly better ground and enclosed so wasnt burned in the sun last year) and havent needed to cut it just yet. Was hoping to start on digging and turning the clay to loam, but my compost is nowhere near ready so going to have to buy some, job for two weeks time now!

Clover can be difficult to get rid of. Persistence is required; I don’t find any weedkiller gets rid of it in one hit.

Once you have got rid, treat the cause. Clover dominates in conditions of nitrogen scarcity in the soil, because it has the ability to extract nitrogen from the air - most plants can only get nitrogen from the soil - and this gives clover a competitive advantage when soil-based nitrogen is in short supply. However, you can guarantee that this process is less efficient than getting nitrogen from the soil (otherwise all plants would do it), so if you improve the availability of soil-based nitrogen you will tilt the competitive advantage back towards the grass, which gets its nitrogen the conventional (and more efficient) way.

So you need to feed your lawn more than you are at the moment. With the weather seeming to be warming up, you can use a spring/summer feed now and this will be high in nitrogen. And then keep feeding at least every 8 weeks throughout the summer until early autumn, when ideally you would switch to a feed designed for autumn and winter (which should have a lot less nitrogen, because the grass growth will be slowing down).

Got an order in for feet and seed from lawnsmith, but need the weather to dry up a bit here in Derby before I get stuck in. Might risk a cut this week and some aerating but it's too wet to start raking the moss out I feel. Probably not surprising considering we were building snowmen last weekend

I too let the clover do its thing. The flowers look good in summer too.