I am glad you've changed the grass seed I were going to mention it yesterday but thought it were to late ( I only come across this thread yesterday ) , you really didn't want the stronger creeping red fescue its a cheap filler grass and not the prettiest , dwarf rye grass look great now most of my own lawn are dwarf perennial rye grass species.
Rye grass is fast to germinate but I am a bit skepical its your new rye grass seed germinating, if it germinating all over the area it probably is your new grass.
In the future I would advise over seeding with a chewing red fescue or slender creeping red fescue or bents not only will it improve the visual look and they are more daught tolerant but if your rye grass succumb to a disease its not going to wipe out the whole lawn ( that unlikely but you get what I am saying ) no need to go into that now maybe next year or before you top dress it is probably inevitable you're bound to have hollows here and there.
Hi Perki and thank you for joining in.
This started as a bit of a distraction but with the changes in everyone's lives recently I have been fortunate to be able to just spend more time on it than I would have planner or had available normally.
I will be a lot more confident tomorrow as there are still areas (though not many) where there are fewer shoots, but I draw some comfort in the fact that there are definitely shoots in the areas where there was zero grass when all this started. So they have come from somewhere!
I hope the cylinder blade sharp , it will tear the grass otherwise . its about £2 - £3 per inch to have sharpened and you usual have to take just the cylinder as well otherwise another hefty bill coming your way .
I don't believe the tetra grass likes being cut to short so be careful with a cylinder mower. Premiership football pitches are cut about 25mm so that should give you an idea , plus they get plenty of feed and rye grass is greedy .
I hope the cylinder blade sharp , it will tear the grass otherwise . its about £2 - £3 per inch to have sharpened and you usual have to take just the cylinder as well otherwise another hefty bill coming your way .
I don't believe the tetra grass seed likes being cut to short so be careful with a cylinder mower. Premiership football pitchs are cut about 25mm so that should give you an idea , plus they get plenty of feed and rye grass is greedy .
I did a test run on the neighbour’s lawn!
It sliced away beautifully. But it’s an important point. A question for you if you don’t mind, the directions for the seed say I should wait for it to reach around 2.5 inches and then cut it back slightly.
Now, the mower is a really heavy beast with a big roller. I can’t see how running over the shoots (at about the current length of my test growing trays) won’t completely demolish the lawn?
How do I cut ‘new’ lawn when it’s still clearly quite fragile, even if it’s reached the correct length. My gf dad has offered his little push cylinder mower, the hand propelled ones, would that work?
Oh and @Perki I’ll illustrate how stupid I am here: When you say a length of 25mm, would that be the height above ground or a thickness of 25mm, or cut the actual blades back to a length where they are approximately 25mm?
I am saying 25 mm as a guide ( ground to top of leaf ) to many people think cause they got a new lawn its now a bowling green cut at 5mm or low or wimbledon cutting at 8mm for play which isn't the case. You may have to research it about the tetra grass but I am prity sure its not suitable for cutting much lower than 25mm.
First cut a predicament , personally I wouldn't use the 32 inch cylinder either , and with cylinders they can't really cut long grass , it depends on size and how many blades the cylinder got usual 6 but more the blades better the cut , the grass has to fit in between the cylinder blade and the bottom blade to cut more blades less space between the blades , they tend to miss grass if its to long. I did a first cut on my front lawn the other day after seeding last autumn , I used a little rotary mower.
If you haven't got anything else to use its worth a try with your gf father cylinder on the highest cut.
@traderneo, cost wise you have saved a mountain of money and as long as you are enjoying this process and knowing,ultimately, that it is all your hard work, then your achievement will be massive. Yes, it would cost an awful lot to instantly lawn such a big area and as you are doing everything yourself, at least you know exactly what has been done, when and why👍🤗. I just admire your determination and foresight. Be safe and well and crack on with a wonderful project.
People here are so lovely!
I did reach a point about a week ago where I began to feel frustrated. It’s a big area and it means when I start on one end doing something, by the time I reach the other end my technique has improved dramatically. So the end looks better than the start!
So you want to get it right so you start at the start again, this time down to 8mm stone removal or something stupid and the cycle repeats.
I just decided I’d done enough. A line had to be drawn and the grass seed was going in! Could it be smoother. Yes. Could it have neater borders. Of course. Could we get more stones out. Absolutely! Are there going to be lots of weeds. Yes, I suspect more of them than I’d like!
But I’ve done enough. Time to let Mother Nature have another go.
Hello all and welcome to todays episode of..."Shooting Forensics"...(you see what I did there!?)
Before I start I do actually have a serious question at the end, if you want to skip all this noise and scroll to the bottom that's ok too.
Yesterday, to those who failed to tune in, I was stunned, shocked even to notice a clear, green tone to almost the entire new lawn area. I will immediately admit there are a LOT of weeds coming up despite all the prep work, more on that in a minute.
(Taken at 15:50)
We are only on day 5 of the grass seed being in the ground and yesterday I pulled out about 20 little 'shoots' which I could not believe might be grass, after 4 days!
So today I have repeated the forensic dig, with yesterday's shoots being my 'control'. If I noticed a clear/consistent increase in size of the same sort of shoots as yesterday, it would be entirely reasonable to conclude that these are in fact the new grass shoots.
Here are today's results: *Man in a white coat hands me the envelope*
An indesputable YES from the panel of judges! These little seeds are incredible. The middle one I managed to preserve the microscopic root system as well and it measures very nearly 5cm, in 5 days! That's 1cm per day of growth!
50p for scale:
The pink circle is to show what to me looks very much like a seed husk still partially attached, encouragingly similar to the very same seed husks on the grass seed I planted. So for me, for now I am happy to announce the seed is not only taking root well, it's doing it at a cracking pace. If you've read this thread you'll have seen I had zero evidence of anything in my 'test' batches indoors after 8 days. To have clear shoots above the surface after 4 is very impressive to me.
Now, on to the more serious issue. It is important to stress I did what I could to deal with the weeds at the start. Two set days of weed killer spray across the whole area, when there were clear signs of weed proliferation. The first being on the weeds that were there to start. Then scraping the dead ones off, waiting another few weeks and spraying what came up again, wait another 3 weeks and remove.
But it's clear I have missed plenty. Here is a pic of what some areas look like, this is about the worst of them, certainly there are large areas where there are no weeds coming up but they aren't my area of concern. What I have been doing is where I can reach in and pull them out with big tweezers I have done so, my reasoning being I don't have much else to do at the moment and one less weed out today while it pops out really easily, is one less weed I need to deal with tomorrow. But there are a lot of them!
So the serious question to the experts is, is there anything I can do to deal with them now other than tweeze, or does this mean I must simply accept that I will have weeds and the process of managing them will be ongoing for the next few months/years?
In my mind I have 2 options: 1) Accept they are there, that I made a really solid effort to start but there is only so much you can reasonably do. 2) Let them grow for 2-3 weeks until they are well on their way, and then spray the entire garden AGAIN (3rd time) and repeat? A little reluctant to do this for 2 reasons, one is cost, I will need to replace all the seed and I have a moral issue with dumping poison into the earth for a 3rd time, I am starting to feel like an evil person.
TL/DR: Grass is going fantastically. I seem to have missed a lot of weeds in some areas, is there anything I can do now, or in the next few weeks to make my dealing with them easier in the next few months? Or do I just accept them and start the process of regular mowing and weed treatments once the lawn is established? I genuinely have no idea when this is possible I would imagine using any kind of weed control on a brand new lawn would be very, very risky.
Thank you again all for your support and feedback. If you are simply reading this and wondering what its about, I apologise for using 3 of your minutes that you will never see back. To the quiet folks reading this who have any ideas but are normally reluctant to comment, please don't be silent I really take everything said on board.
Hi, regarding the weed problem you can rule out option 2 right away. It understanding the cycle of weed seed or seeds in general .
Some of the weeds you are seeing now could be dormant seeds from a last year or a few years ago , with turning the soil its exposing them to more light ( if they need light to germiante ) water etc. Some weed seedling like himalayen balsm can take up to 7 years to eradicate with dormant seeds spring to life , you miss one weed and let it seed and it all starts again . So no don't worry to much about the weeds prick out by hand when you are passing for now .
Once the grass has matured you can use selective weedkiller ( not weedkiller ) it can be applied to the entire lawn if you wish, it must be a selective lawn weedkiller it will not kill the grass and will kill anything which has a broad leaf. You may need to keep an eye out for weed grass it will have a broader leaf than your cultivated grass and will have a lighter colour green , Poa annua is a prolific weed grass and its inevitable you will get it but its probably not worth the effort pulling it out unless certain bits are bugging you , other weed grass like yorkshire fog look hideous large broad leaf it will take over large patches of lawn if not removed, selective weedkiller will not touch these weed grass.
Some weeds won't stand much mowing so will weaken once the grass gets going and you start mowing. Others can be hand-weeded once the grass is strong enough to stand a bit of walking on, or treated with weedkiller later on.
Meanwhile let the grass grow .
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
Some weeds won't stand much mowing so will weaken once the grass gets going and you start mowing. Others can be hand-weeded once the grass is strong enough to stand a bit of walking on, or treated with weedkiller later on.
Meanwhile let the grass grow .
Hi Jenny!
I am relived that if its a proper weed it won't stand much chance once the lawn is established. I probably sound more paranoid in my writing than I am about it in real life. But I would like to have as few as possible. But wait until you see my next post...
Posts
This started as a bit of a distraction but with the changes in everyone's lives recently I have been fortunate to be able to just spend more time on it than I would have planner or had available normally.
I will be a lot more confident tomorrow as there are still areas (though not many) where there are fewer shoots, but I draw some comfort in the fact that there are definitely shoots in the areas where there was zero grass when all this started. So they have come from somewhere!
Fingers crossed...
I don't believe the tetra grass likes being cut to short so be careful with a cylinder mower. Premiership football pitches are cut about 25mm so that should give you an idea , plus they get plenty of feed and rye grass is greedy .
How do I cut ‘new’ lawn when it’s still clearly quite fragile, even if it’s reached the correct length. My gf dad has offered his little push cylinder mower, the hand propelled ones, would that work?
When you say a length of 25mm, would that be the height above ground or a thickness of 25mm, or cut the actual blades back to a length where they are approximately 25mm?
First cut a predicament , personally I wouldn't use the 32 inch cylinder either , and with cylinders they can't really cut long grass , it depends on size and how many blades the cylinder got usual 6 but more the blades better the cut , the grass has to fit in between the cylinder blade and the bottom blade to cut more blades less space between the blades , they tend to miss grass if its to long.
I did a first cut on my front lawn the other day after seeding last autumn , I used a little rotary mower.
If you haven't got anything else to use its worth a try with your gf father cylinder on the highest cut.
I did reach a point about a week ago where I began to feel frustrated. It’s a big area and it means when I start on one end doing something, by the time I reach the other end my technique has improved dramatically. So the end looks better than the start!
So you want to get it right so you start at the start again, this time down to 8mm stone removal or something stupid and the cycle repeats.
But I’ve done enough. Time to let Mother Nature have another go.
Before I start I do actually have a serious question at the end, if you want to skip all this noise and scroll to the bottom that's ok too.
Yesterday, to those who failed to tune in, I was stunned, shocked even to notice a clear, green tone to almost the entire new lawn area. I will immediately admit there are a LOT of weeds coming up despite all the prep work, more on that in a minute.
(Taken at 15:50)
We are only on day 5 of the grass seed being in the ground and yesterday I pulled out about 20 little 'shoots' which I could not believe might be grass, after 4 days!
So today I have repeated the forensic dig, with yesterday's shoots being my 'control'. If I noticed a clear/consistent increase in size of the same sort of shoots as yesterday, it would be entirely reasonable to conclude that these are in fact the new grass shoots.
Here are today's results: *Man in a white coat hands me the envelope*
An indesputable YES from the panel of judges!
These little seeds are incredible. The middle one I managed to preserve the microscopic root system as well and it measures very nearly 5cm, in 5 days! That's 1cm per day of growth!
50p for scale:
The pink circle is to show what to me looks very much like a seed husk still partially attached, encouragingly similar to the very same seed husks on the grass seed I planted. So for me, for now I am happy to announce the seed is not only taking root well, it's doing it at a cracking pace. If you've read this thread you'll have seen I had zero evidence of anything in my 'test' batches indoors after 8 days. To have clear shoots above the surface after 4 is very impressive to me.
Now, on to the more serious issue.
It is important to stress I did what I could to deal with the weeds at the start. Two set days of weed killer spray across the whole area, when there were clear signs of weed proliferation. The first being on the weeds that were there to start. Then scraping the dead ones off, waiting another few weeks and spraying what came up again, wait another 3 weeks and remove.
But it's clear I have missed plenty. Here is a pic of what some areas look like, this is about the worst of them, certainly there are large areas where there are no weeds coming up but they aren't my area of concern.
What I have been doing is where I can reach in and pull them out with big tweezers I have done so, my reasoning being I don't have much else to do at the moment and one less weed out today while it pops out really easily, is one less weed I need to deal with tomorrow. But there are a lot of them!
So the serious question to the experts is, is there anything I can do to deal with them now other than tweeze, or does this mean I must simply accept that I will have weeds and the process of managing them will be ongoing for the next few months/years?
In my mind I have 2 options:
1) Accept they are there, that I made a really solid effort to start but there is only so much you can reasonably do.
2) Let them grow for 2-3 weeks until they are well on their way, and then spray the entire garden AGAIN (3rd time) and repeat?
A little reluctant to do this for 2 reasons, one is cost, I will need to replace all the seed and I have a moral issue with dumping poison into the earth for a 3rd time, I am starting to feel like an evil person.
TL/DR: Grass is going fantastically. I seem to have missed a lot of weeds in some areas, is there anything I can do now, or in the next few weeks to make my dealing with them easier in the next few months? Or do I just accept them and start the process of regular mowing and weed treatments once the lawn is established? I genuinely have no idea when this is possible I would imagine using any kind of weed control on a brand new lawn would be very, very risky.
Thank you again all for your support and feedback. If you are simply reading this and wondering what its about, I apologise for using 3 of your minutes that you will never see back. To the quiet folks reading this who have any ideas but are normally reluctant to comment, please don't be silent I really take everything said on board.
Some of the weeds you are seeing now could be dormant seeds from a last year or a few years ago , with turning the soil its exposing them to more light ( if they need light to germiante ) water etc. Some weed seedling like himalayen balsm can take up to 7 years to eradicate with dormant seeds spring to life , you miss one weed and let it seed and it all starts again . So no don't worry to much about the weeds prick out by hand when you are passing for now .
Once the grass has matured you can use selective weedkiller ( not weedkiller ) it can be applied to the entire lawn if you wish, it must be a selective lawn weedkiller it will not kill the grass and will kill anything which has a broad leaf. You may need to keep an eye out for weed grass it will have a broader leaf than your cultivated grass and will have a lighter colour green , Poa annua is a prolific weed grass and its inevitable you will get it but its probably not worth the effort pulling it out unless certain bits are bugging you , other weed grass like yorkshire fog look hideous large broad leaf it will take over large patches of lawn if not removed, selective weedkiller will not touch these weed grass.
I am relived that if its a proper weed it won't stand much chance once the lawn is established. I probably sound more paranoid in my writing than I am about it in real life. But I would like to have as few as possible. But wait until you see my next post...