Squidgy turf

melanierika7 · February 2022

Hi everyone,

We bought our first house and thus have our first experience of a garden. We had landscapers completely strip everything and start over, including the turf.....this was all completed towards the end of November.

Since then, we have been watering A LOT, as that is what we thought we had to do. We haven't walked on the grass to ensure proper growth and then yesterday I was in touch with the landscaper who said we should be fine to walk on it now.....so we did.

Most of it seems great, but there are areas where you sink down into the ground and then the area right next to your foot lifts up a bit. There is no visible water, so it's not soggy, just squishy. The lawn looks lovely and lush and very very green, but unfortunately the garden doesn't get much sun this time of year.

So my questions are:

Am I being impatient and is this a long term project that just needs more time to settle before using it freely? Or is there actually something wrong with the squishy bits? The landscaper is going to try and get to me, but they are generally very busy and I don't know how long it will take. I just need to know if there is something I can do in the meantime. We have now stopped watering as I have a feeling that might also be a contributing factor.

Any help or advice appreciated.....we are complete amateurs and have no idea what we are doing.

Fairygirl · February 2022

Where are you - roughly?
Normally, if you had turf laid at that time of year, it would need virtually no watering, unless you were in the very driest part of the UK.
Heavy watering is really only needed if laying turf in spring/summer, in order to establish it well.

melanierika7 · February 2022

We are in London/Kent borders. It probably does count as dry, doesn't it? But we watered for 4 hours a day for a month and then 4 hours every couple of days. It was that bad, that Thames Water called to inspect as they couldn't understand why we were using that much water. I'm dreading the next bill.....

Fairygirl · February 2022

Did you never have any rain in that period? If you have some reasonable rain during the course of a day, you wouldn't water. Around a couple of hours of steady rain would be enough. I'm surprised the people who laid the turf didn't give you some useful guidance too, but landscapers aren't always 'gardeners' as such, unfortunately.
That's a helluva lot of watering for the time of year, even if it's a large area of grass, and even if you're in a drier part of the country, which I'd expect you are.

Plantminded · February 2022

At most, I would only water new turf laid in November once or twice to ensure the earth below is damp enough to encourage any roots to grow downwards. Grass would normally be dormant from November to about late February/early March, unless you've had an unusually mild spell. I'd suggest you let the grass recover now from overwatering and water only after the grass starts to grow, if there's been no rain.

Jenny_Aster · February 2022

We had new turf 6 months ago. The landscaper literally rotavated the top soil, raked it flat, then laid the turf. He used planks across the newly laid turf so he wouldn't 'sink' while laying the next row.

He also told us not to walk on the turf for several weeks and water it when it doesn't rain.

We tried hard not to walk on it, we were scared of leaving dented footprints. Our 40kg dog prancing about on the lawn gave us nightmares, but the grass has now settled and is firm to walk on, it looks quite smooth. Maybe not smooth enough to have a game of bowls on, but it's fine for us.

melanierika7 · February 2022

Thanks everyone,

It definitely sounds likely that it's been over watered based on what you're saying. I'll stop completely now until it dries out properly and the sun gets hold of it.

Thanks again.

Dovefromabove · February 2022

With any luck it'll romp away once the soil warms up this spring ... it may never need watering again ... unless we get a ridiculous drought.

Squidgy turf

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