If you go down the wait / weedkiller / wait / rake and level route you will be ready to lay turf by the mid-end of April. Another 6 weeks of watering and keeping off the lawn to give it a chance to become well rooted and you'll have a nice lawn by June.
Patience is the biggest virtue a gardener can have. Random application of weedkiller in the wrong concentration at the wrong time and without enough time to work is bad for your pocket, the environment and is a waste of time.
Yeah pretty sure I got the weed killer timing wrong then. Admittedly I was guided by the chap at the garden centre but I’ll give it another treatment when it stops raining and it warms up a bit.
Yep, you can have a lawn this summer if you deal with the weeds in April and sow seed end April. 7-10 days to germinate, first cut in 4-6 weeks and thick enough to use soon after.
If you are planning on sowing grass seed for a lawn, I would try and rotovate in as much organic matter as you can get. Well rotted farm yard manure, home made compost or even composted bark. My brother bought a new build with turf laid on top of clay and bricks, he stripped the lot off, rotovated in the contents of mums compost heap, and then reseeded. He turned a nasty area into a decent lawn. I have lawns on my side on sandy soil which are fairly decent, lawns next door on clay subsoil are diabolical, currently very slippy mud. The more preparation you do at this stage, the better the lawn will be.
You will know it has rained every weekend (and most of the week) for nearly 6 weeks. So it’s been impossible to do anything out there. Here is how it still looks: Done more tidying up and cleaning away. I have been adding the contents of the wood stove each morning and mixing that in hence the grey patches.
So here is today's question to those in the know please: I did a soil test and it turns out I have loamy soil, not as much clay as I thought. So thats good. The trouble is the soil is VERY heavily mixed with rocks and stones. Pretty much every handful will result in a decent size stone of some kind.
My guess is this isn't ideal substrate/ground to plant grass on and I need to get the rocks out. I have about 2 tons of topsoil out front that is good soil but again, has a crazy amount of rock and stone in it.
What is the best way to remove rocks and stones? I assume the old fashioned 'get on your knees and take it out one handful at a time' is an option but it will take days.
Here's a close up, you can see its littered with rock bits.
And dead branches and roots etc.
I can start a new thread for this if necessary but how does one remove stones and rocks from soil as efficiently as possible? I assume I need to wait for it all to dry out a great deal. Then use a sieve? Or just rake? Is there a machine to help? A tool? A bit of kit?
As ever thank you for your guidance. It seems the weed killer has actually had an effect from when I first used it as a lot of the green patches have lost a lot of colour. And I still quite like the bulbs that seem to be coming up.
You will know it has rained every weekend (and most of the week) for nearly 6 weeks. So it’s been impossible to do anything out there. Here is how it still looks: Done more tidying up and cleaning away. I have been adding the contents of the wood stove each morning and mixing that in hence the grey patches.
So here is today's question to those in the know please: I did a soil test and it turns out I have loamy soil, not as much clay as I thought. So thats good. The trouble is the soil is VERY heavily mixed with rocks and stones. Pretty much every handful will result in a decent size stone of some kind.
My guess is this isn't ideal substrate/ground to plant grass on and I need to get the rocks out. I have about 2 tons of topsoil out front that is good soil but again, has a crazy amount of rock and stone in it.
What is the best way to remove rocks and stones? I assume the old fashioned 'get on your knees and take it out one handful at a time' is an option but it will take days.
Here's a close up, you can see its littered with rock bits.
And dead branches and roots etc.
I can start a new thread for this if necessary but how does one remove stones and rocks from soil as efficiently as possible? I assume I need to wait for it all to dry out a great deal. Then use a sieve? Or just rake? Is there a machine to help? A tool? A bit of kit?
As ever thank you for your guidance. It seems the weed killer has actually had an effect from when I first used it as a lot of the green patches have lost a lot of colour. And I still quite like the bulbs that seem to be coming up.
I'd just rake them , once the grass is sown and growing it will hide a lot of imperfections. I have had some terrible looking messes when I've weeded and overseeded some lawns. They were an embarrassing muddy mess for a bit but then looked great afterwards.
For any still following this thread. I have been waiting patiently for the weather to slowly improve and the rain to stop. No such luck.
Though the ground temperature has risen to about 8 degrees and I have begun to notice a great deal of germination of seeds, most of which I am going to assume are weeds.
Happy as ever to take advice in here, there is due to be 6 days of sun from Sunday so my plan is to spray again over the entire area. If anyone can confirm it's about the right time to do so please?
Then in the meantime I have taken delivery of lawn/grass seeds! I have opted for a combination of 50% dwarf perennial rye grass and 50% strong creeping red fescue.
To test the rate of germination I have prepared two containers and dried the two soil types out (on top of my wood burner!) and then filtered each sample down to about 10mm using this clever contraption...
The guidelines for sowing rate for a new lawn are 35g per square metre, so I have planted the seed at this ratio into the two test planters and moistened the soil.
Next up (and just for fun given us all needing to be practising good social distancing) I have set up my GoPro to take an image every minute for the next 3 weeks so we can track germination rate and seed quality! The trays have been placed in my conservatory where it gets some sun and is warm without being hot. I shall aim to keep the soil moist.
The seed is from www.a1lawn.co.uk so no pressure...their 25 blend tough hard wearing lawn...
24,000 images to go!
I think I may start a new thread for the germination test for others to follow...look out for a link!
As ever, thank you for any contributions you may have, I take everything that is said to me on board and work to apply it.
I'm strangely eager to see the timelapse of grass growing.
Ha!
At the moment it's two damp trays. Not much excitement... I may just turn off the camera for the first day or 3 until I see some action...there's not much to talk about with a tray full of dirt...
Posts
You will know it has rained every weekend (and most of the week) for nearly 6 weeks. So it’s been impossible to do anything out there. Here is how it still looks:
Done more tidying up and cleaning away. I have been adding the contents of the wood stove each morning and mixing that in hence the grey patches.
So here is today's question to those in the know please:
I did a soil test and it turns out I have loamy soil, not as much clay as I thought. So thats good. The trouble is the soil is VERY heavily mixed with rocks and stones. Pretty much every handful will result in a decent size stone of some kind.
My guess is this isn't ideal substrate/ground to plant grass on and I need to get the rocks out. I have about 2 tons of topsoil out front that is good soil but again, has a crazy amount of rock and stone in it.
What is the best way to remove rocks and stones? I assume the old fashioned 'get on your knees and take it out one handful at a time' is an option but it will take days.
Here's a close up, you can see its littered with rock bits.
I can start a new thread for this if necessary but how does one remove stones and rocks from soil as efficiently as possible? I assume I need to wait for it all to dry out a great deal. Then use a sieve? Or just rake? Is there a machine to help? A tool? A bit of kit?
As ever thank you for your guidance. It seems the weed killer has actually had an effect from when I first used it as a lot of the green patches have lost a lot of colour. And I still quite like the bulbs that seem to be coming up.
I have been waiting patiently for the weather to slowly improve and the rain to stop. No such luck.
Though the ground temperature has risen to about 8 degrees and I have begun to notice a great deal of germination of seeds, most of which I am going to assume are weeds.
Happy as ever to take advice in here, there is due to be 6 days of sun from Sunday so my plan is to spray again over the entire area. If anyone can confirm it's about the right time to do so please?
Then in the meantime I have taken delivery of lawn/grass seeds!
I have opted for a combination of 50% dwarf perennial rye grass and 50% strong creeping red fescue.
To test the rate of germination I have prepared two containers and dried the two soil types out (on top of my wood burner!) and then filtered each sample down to about 10mm using this clever contraption...
The guidelines for sowing rate for a new lawn are 35g per square metre, so I have planted the seed at this ratio into the two test planters and moistened the soil.
Next up (and just for fun given us all needing to be practising good social distancing) I have set up my GoPro to take an image every minute for the next 3 weeks so we can track germination rate and seed quality! The trays have been placed in my conservatory where it gets some sun and is warm without being hot. I shall aim to keep the soil moist.
The seed is from www.a1lawn.co.uk so no pressure...their 25 blend tough hard wearing lawn...
24,000 images to go!
I think I may start a new thread for the germination test for others to follow...look out for a link!
As ever, thank you for any contributions you may have, I take everything that is said to me on board and work to apply it.
HP
At the moment it's two damp trays. Not much excitement... I may just turn off the camera for the first day or 3 until I see some action...there's not much to talk about with a tray full of dirt...