| Brief Guide to Lawns and Lawncare |
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Lawns are all too often the bane and bugbear of the happy gardener. Too many weeds, invasion by moss, brown patches… All gardeners know that if only they can get the lawn looking neat, the rest will follow (more or less). They picture the perfect green sward, dream of bowling greens and Wimbledon, then they look despondently at how far their lawn lags behind that ideal.
Remedy is at hand. It will take some work: lawns need almost year-round attention. But making a good, healthy lawn (if not quite an ideal lawn) is not that difficult to achieve. (If, on the other hand, you really can't muster the effort, you might be better off thinking of gravel or paving stones.) |
| Mow, mow, mow! |
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Lawns are domesticated versions of nature's grasslands: prairies, moors, pasture. They too would be dominated by weeds (and shrubs and trees) were it not for grazing animals. The grazers crop back all the plants - and grass wins because, unlike most other plants, it thrives on being cropped. The gardener's equivalent of the grazing animal is the lawnmower.
So here is the best thing you can do for your lawn: mow it regularly. Little and often. From May to August (in Britain), set the mower to medium height (2-4 cm, or ¾-1½ in) and mow at least once a week, if not twice. This will encourage good, strong growth, weaken the weeds, and allow the grass to dominate. If you let the grass get too long, the weeds will start muscling in. Crop the lawn too short, and you'll weaken the grass's ability to compete. |
| Feed it |
| To keep your grass healthy, and actively shutting out the weeds and moss, it needs to be fed with fertiliser, especially during the period of vigorous growth in spring and summer. Ready-made lawn fertilisers, available from garden centres and hardware stores, usually contain a mixture of nitrogen (for leaf growth), phosphorus and potassium/potash (for root-development). Spray-on liquid fertilisers give better coverage, but granules work over time on the 'slow-release' principle. |
| Weed it |
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Your grass may well be unable to exercise weed-control entirely on its own, and might need your help. You can hoick out the large broad-leaved weeds (dandelions, plantains, daisies) by hand using a narrow trowel, or target individual plants by dabbing them with spot weedkiller. But seriously weedy lawns may need to be treated more radically by spraying the whole area with selective weedkiller.
Selective weedkillers contain hormones that overstimulate growth in weeds, causing their demise; but they should leave grass unharmed. Apply them first in around May: first cut the lawn and feed it with fertiliser to invigorate the grass; then wait two weeks and (on a dry day) hit the lawn with the selective weedkiller. You can rake away the dead weeds after a few days. Some selective weedkillers also contain fertiliser, which encourages the growth of the grass as the weeds die back. The packet will give you full instructions. |
| Scratch it |
| Or, more politely put: scarify. Use a wire-tined lawn-rake to remove the debris or 'thatch' of dead grass, weeds and moss early in the year, as early as March. This promotes the grass's growth and reduces the risk of infection by moss or disease. |
| Give it some air |
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Good grass growth will be inhibited by poorly-drained or compacted soil. To improve the texture of the soil, and the drainage, you can aerate it with a garden fork. Simply dig the fork in to a depth of about 10 cm (4 in), in rows 10 cm (4 in) apart. Then fill the holes with a mixture of peat and coarse sand; you can do this by covering the area with the mixture, and brushing it gently across the lawn into the holes.
If you have a large area of lawn, you might like to invest in a wheeled mechanical spiker, which you can push over the grass to the same effect. |
| Worms |
| Worms have much the same effect as your fork: they burrow in the lawn and aerate the soil. The only trouble is that they leave worm casts. If you mow over the worm casts, they can smear your mower as well as the grass, and can form little worm-pats that inhibit grass growth. If worm casts are a problem, brush them away before mowing the lawn. |
| Water |
| Watering with sprinklers during dry spells in summer will keep a lawn looking green and healthy. But, in fact, established lawns should not have to be watered much, if at all, provided that they have not been cut too closely. During summer hose-pipe bans, your lawn may go a scary shade of brown. But don't worry too much: grass is a survivor, and lawns have extraordinary powers of recovery. |
| Types of lawn: horses for courses |
There are three main of types of lawn, categorised by their usage.
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| Which mower for me? |
There are three main types of mower. They are not entirely interchangeable: each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
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| Box or no box |
| Some mowers come with a box to collect the clippings, others don't. The question is: do you need to remove grass clippings, or can you just leave them scattered on the ground? The answer is: a bit of both. Grass-clippings contain valuable nutrients and can help a lawn to retain moisture - particularly valuable in dry spells. On the other hand, you don't want the grass-clippings to create a mat of debris on the lawn, which could damage the health of the grass and invite disease and fungi. You may not much like people tramping clippings into your house, either. A good compromise is to collect and discard (or, better, compost) clippings from the spring mowings, when the harvest is copious; but leave them scattered later in the year when you are mowing once or twice a week, and the clippings are finer. |
| Mower maintenance |
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If your mower blades aren't sharp or properly set, you can damage the grass by crushing and bruising it instead of cutting it cleanly. Blades get blunt by cutting, or chewed up when they hit stones. At least once a year, you should get your blades sharpened by a professional sharpener. Or you can do this yourself; for a cylinder mower you can use abrasive paste or an abrasive strip, available from hardware stores (see www.abrasive.co.uk). You can sharpen rotary blades with a file or carborundum stone, or you can buy a replacement blade at a relatively low cost.
In addition, you should regularly clean the mower of dead grass and debris, and oil the moving parts. |
| Starting from scratch |
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Some lawns are more weed than grass, and beyond repair. The best thing may be to bite the bullet and start again. People who are laying a lawn for the first time - for a newly-built house, for instance - will be in a similar position. (The same general principles will also apply to anyone who wants to replace a bad patch in an existing lawn.)
You can lay a new lawn by sowing seed or using turf. Turf is a way of producing 'instant lawn' but it is considerably more expensive than seed. The soil preparation for both, however, is more or less identical. First, decide what kind of lawn you want: what kind of wear are you going to subject it to? Next, design its shape; measure it (to order seed or turf). Now the hard work begins. You are going to have to prepare the soil to a depth of at least 15 cm (6 in), and maybe bring in tons of topsoil. Dig in compost and manure: you are looking to create a rich, well-structured and well-drained soil. The surface should also be reasonably flat (although it can always be sloping). Leave it for three months, to let any weeds work their way through, then dig it over again, and apply more fertiliser. The top layer should now be a fine tilth, with a firm base beneath it. Onto this you can sow the seed mix that suits your style of lawn. The best time to do this is in early autumn or spring; after six weeks you should have a lawn that you can mow. The best time to lay turf is in October, but other times are fine, as long as you water well. Turves come in rolled-up slabs measuring 1 square metre (16.40 cm x 61 cm); they should be laid in a staggered pattern (like brickwork), and used as soon as possible after delivery (otherwise they go yellow and sickly). Keep well watered, and fill any cracks that appear between the turves with sandy soil. |
| The lawn year |
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March: Rake/scarify the lawn; aerate the soil by spiking it with a fork; perhaps mow, on a high setting. April: Mow on a medium setting; fertilise; sow seed in patches in need of repair. May: Start the routine of mowing at least a week; apply fertiliser; treat with selective weedkiller if necessary. June: Continue mowing at least once a week; apply fertiliser. July/August: Continue mowing at least once a week; apply fertiliser; water during dry spells. September: Mow as needed; sow seed for patches or new lawns. October: Mow with a high setting; aerate compacted soil by spiking it with a fork; apply potassium-rich fertiliser; lay turf. November: Mow a final time before winter on a high setting. December/January/February: Have a rest. You need it, and so does the lawn. |
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