Hard working lawns

September is the time to give your hard working lawn a little TLC. After a long summer of ware and tare and this year 2022 a draught. There is enough warmth to germinate grass seed and with the early autumn rain, to help repair bold spots and get the lawn in good health ready for the winter.

Cutting lawn edging with edging shears.

1) Edging: Over the summer plants have no doubt spilt out over the lawn, so re-defining the edges is important, be weary of constantly making the beds a little larger as the plants flop forward. This ends up with wobbly edged beds and more weeding. Better to sharpen the edge of the lawn and repair any bold patches where the plants have grown over the summer. For existing edges, just a short trim with lawn edging shears should do the job. To redefine a long edge, mark with pegs and string or use marker spray and a good sharp half moon edging tool, to cut a clean crisp lawn edge.

Scaffing a lawn with a wire rake.

2) Scaffing Lawn: Over the growing season the lawn will have built up thatch and possible mossy areas, on a dry day, get a good strong spring-bok or similar wire rake and rake the lawn hard. Start at one end and edge of the lawn and work your way over the whole lawn. Then for a really good job rake across the lawn over the grain as it were, in the opposite directions. All the material you have removed from the lawn, can go into the compost bin.

Aerating with a garden fork.

3) Aerating the lawn: Aerating compacted areas of a lawn is really important it aids drainage and gets air and moisture down to the organisms that live in your lawn and make it healthily, It might just be the areas that have been the goal or a worn path across the lawn, or the dog run route or it could be the whole lawn. If it is just patches then using a folk will be fine or if it is a very small lawn, for anything a bit bigger if you are doing the whole lawn then I would suggest hiring an aerating machine or getting a lawn maintenance company in to carry out the hard graft. For small patches, starting just beyond the bold compacted area, hold the fork vertical and dig down to a ¼ spits depth about 75/100mm, give the fork a bit of a wiggle not too much and pull out, you need to work your way in lines over the whole area with a gap of about 70mm between each forked area. You can get specialist aerating forks that have hollow tines and remove a plug of soil, but unless you are doing a lot, I would say that it is a bit of kit you can do without.

An aerating machine, being used on a lawn.

Re-seeding the lawn.

4) Weeds and Seeding: So no doubt your lawn is now possible looking a bit bald after all your efforts of scaffing and aerating. Walk over the lawn with a small hand trowel in hand and dig up any really large and persistent weeds, unless you are happy with a more flowery lawn approach. Dandelions, plantains and the odd nettle. So identify the areas of the lawn that need seeding all those bald patches. With a fixed tine rack, rake them hard to get a thin soil thilth to seed into. Buy some lawn sand, or a lawn sand top soil mix, lightly spread this over the bald patches, to make a thin layer. Now with a watering can with a fine rose, gently water the areas you are going to seed. Now using a good quality grass seed for hard wearing domestic use, follow the quantise recommend on the packet and lightly seed the areas. For larger areas of the lawn where the grass is just looking thin after all your work, rake with a fixed tine rake, then water with a fine rose and the seed direct onto the existing grass. If you can you need to stop animals and people walking across the newly seeded areas, also anything else you can do to try to keep the birds of the seed is good. Water with a fine rose very few days, but making sure you do not displace the grass seed, if it is raining this will not be needed. After about 3 weeks the grass should be germinating well if it has been wet and warm enough. Re-seed where needed.

A beautiful striped lawn.

So don’t delay now is the time to be kind to your lawn, whether a small patch in a court yard that you sun bath on or a family lawn that has had ball games on all year. Or a lawn that has had the dogs running circles on. All can do with a little lawn TLC.