Lawn Advice

[talksr]

Hello everyone, looking for some general advice on my back garden.

It will be six years old this July. I bought the house brand new back in 2018.
The grass was in an appalling state when I got my keys. It was knee high and looked like a meadow. It was lovely turf before, but was not maintained by the builder and was in a real state. I cut it all down, it was very brown and dry. Added lots of new seeds and water and eventually, got it looking really nice. There have always been odd patches here and there. In the past I have dug those areas out, added in fresh top soil and re-seeded. It has worked well and other than the lawn not being all that level, it has been ok.

I got tired of the constant maintenance, so last year cut down on watering and stopped mowing as frequently, opting to just cut short less often - I know the best thing to do is keep it long but was getting tired of the time I was spending on it. I now have a Flymo robot mower, so I don’t need to worry about cutting. I am planning on letting it grow much longer again.

I cut it down, raked it out as there was a lot of moss and I have added a lawn fertiliser with seeds. Unfortunately, the spring on my spreader had broken, I didn’t realise but it dumped a lot of fertiliser in certain parts of the lawn. I am worried it has killed off the grass - you will see from the picture, the black area.

What would your recommend I do with this? I have been very tempted to have the whole lawn re-done as the topsoil was very poor quality when I bought the house. I thought it would be nice to bring the grass in level with the top step and have a retaining wall put in, but the cost of this is in the thousands. It isn’t something I would be able to do myself.

Just wondering what people’s opinions and advice are? I have been watering it lots recently as this should help with growth and getting the fertiliser into the ground.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Was it purely fertiliser? They often add a moss killer and if you have moss in it it turns black just like that. Watering is also a good way to encourage moss. If it is moss it should rake out with a wire rake, hard work , but it is not a huge area.

 

[talksr]

Hello! Thank you for your post. This was the stuff…

Thickener, greener grass, kills weeds and moss.
Maybe you are right and that is why it is so black. It just happens that the black area was where my spreader dumped a considerable amount. I raked away as much as I could and I also used a brush from a dustpan and brush to help spread it away from that area.

I will keep an eye on it and see how it comes back. Not needed to water for the past few days as it has been so wet with the rain.
Thanks for your post.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Yep, the fourth effect is 'controls' moss. dump a bit extra on and that becomes 'kills' moss, bet that's what happened.
Careful how you use that stuff, I think they say just in Spring and Autumn, a long gap between applications anyway. The black will fade as the grass grows, but it won't be quick, raking out the dead moss will help, but you will probably find it does not compost at all well, better off putting it in the green bin if you have one.

 

[talksr]

Yep, the fourth effect is 'controls' moss. dump a bit extra on and that becomes 'kills' moss, bet that's what happened.
Careful how you use that stuff, I think they say just in Spring and Autumn, a long gap between applications anyway. The black will fade as the grass grows, but it won't be quick, raking out the dead moss will help, but you will probably find it does not compost at all well, better off putting it in the green bin if you have one.

Thanks Oliver. I noticed on the back it said you needed to be careful. Was so annoyed my spreader had broken. The release spring on the bottom has snapped so when I pulled the handle, it dumped a lot of the feed all in one place.
At least the moss is going. I have raked it several times and again earlier, so gradually getting rid of the moss. I think you are right, the moss doesn't really compost nicely so better to just get rid.

Thanks for your help on this.

 

[talksr]

Thanks Oliver. I noticed on the back it said you needed to be careful. Was so annoyed my spreader had broken. The release spring on the bottom has snapped so when I pulled the handle, it dumped a lot of the feed all in one place.
At least the moss is going. I have raked it several times and again earlier, so gradually getting rid of the moss. I think you are right, the moss doesn't really compost nicely so better to just get rid.

Thanks for your help on this.

An update.....
I re-seeded some areas that didn't grow back.
Still looking very patchy in places. Have not cut for a while now and watering as much as I can so the soil is never completely dry.

Any ideas on what I should do next? I have put quite a lot of seed down in the areas that had the worst patches.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Too much watering will bring your moss problem back. I would say rake then mow, not too short, but fairly frequently. Remember the joke about the American tourist asking the gardener how they got such beautiful grass on the Cathedral green in Canterbury, "Well you mows and you mows and you mows; for about four hundred years."

 

[talksr]

Hello! I am back again.
Before the end of autumn, I aerated the lawn with a proper aerator tool and left it to grow longer so the frost didn't cause too much damage. I added a final run of lawn feed also.
Here is a photo of before in October 24:

This is now....

It doesn't look great. Really patchy and moss again. I made sure the lawn feed had anti-moss in it, and there is a massive strip of it down the middle of the lawn. I have had a few chaps come and price up the garden to raise the end of the garden by the shed and put a retaining wall in and all have said that the soil is garbage and the whole lot needs digging up and re-doing with turf. What are your thoughts?

Every single year I get lots of moss despite this time aerating it and adding the correct lawn feed.

 

[cpp gardener]

How much direct sun does it get?
How much do you irrigate and how much rain do you get?
Moss is an indicator of moist shade and if it doesn’t get a lot of sun or stays wet a lot, moss will always be a problem no matter what kind of fertilizer you use. Let it dry out a lot, if you can, and you will have fewer moss issues.

 

[talksr]

How much direct sun does it get?
How much do you irrigate and how much rain do you get?
Moss is an indicator of moist shade and if it doesn’t get a lot of sun or stays wet a lot, moss will always be a problem no matter what kind of fertilizer you use. Let it dry out a lot, if you can, and you will have fewer moss issues.

It is South facing so when it is sunny, it gets a lot. There is a lot of clay like soil under the grass which I think is retaining a lot of water. I water it in the hot summer months if I can see it is getting dry, but I keep the length higher to keep it healthier in summer months. The final cut was done in October and it was a high cut to keep it thicker over winter.

I think the issue of moss is down to the fact that the soil has a lot of clay is watter logging under the surface which is causing the moss. I am getting to the point now where after several years of this, I am really feeling like the only way forward is to dig out the whole lot, put down new soil and re-turf as it keeps happening every year whatever I throw at it and try. It isn't a job I can do, so I would need to get some professionals in.

We have a local gardener, who I have dropped a message to. I have asked him if he can come and have a look and see what he thinks. If it isn't something he can resolve, I might look at doing the above and having it all dug out and re-done.

 

[cpp gardener]

You could try applying gypsum. It helps open clay soils by causing flocculation. It’s when clay particles bind together in small clods and opens pore spaces between them. This helps with drainage and air penetration into the root zone. Some forms are more soluble than others, so check that out.

 

[RockyAldo]

Black spots are probably form the moss control in the fertilizer, if too much was used. Keep the grass a little longer when mowing and throw down some high nitrogen feed. It should help it bounce back.

 

[Sean Regan]

Few lawns look good at this time of the year.
A problem for those of us with small gardens in the UK is that we get a lot of rain and our "love of six foot post and panel fences," creates a lot of shade. Even more so in our garden where the planting is high.
I get moss every year, so it needs constant watching and regular applications of iron sulphate.
We had a few dry days a couple of weeks ago, so I scarified mine on the highest setting of my forty-year-old B&D lawnrake.

I got half a green bin full of moss and thatch without ripping out any of the live grass.


I gave it an application of this, I picked up at half price at our local Homebase, which was closing down and had been bought by B&Q.

There are signs that it is starting to recover.

But it will be a while yet. It will need scarifying again, but probably not until May, when the ground has been dry for a few days.
I have an aging Flymo Ultraglide. I think their best ever mower as it has a fan the size of the blade behind it which collects all the grass and also fallen leaves in the Autumn.

I regularly mow the lawn, sometimes as much as three times a week in mid-summer, but always at least once. I do set it higher in the really warm weather.

I'm not expecting much more improvement for a few weeks as despite the recent warmer weather everything is still wet. I'll also try to keep off of it as much as possible.
I'm hoping for a greater improvement this year, particularly at the bottom of the garden as that was in constant shade, from a huge tree in the garden to the left, which has now been cut down and silver birches to the right which a neighbour and I pruned right back a week ago.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

You talk about digging it out and starting over, if you really want to start over I would try digging it in, rotted turf improves clay soil no end. Careful about getting it tilled, a tiller will fluff up the soil, but where the blades pass across the bottom underneath they can compress the clay so you get a waterproof, impenetrable layer about nine inches down, and if you add stuff to level it try and make sure the bottom layer is mixed in with the existing soil. I did think it looked a lot better than the first pictures though.