Sow more thickly than you think you'll need - do it in both directions too, to ensure a decent coverage.
Ah, one other thing I meant to come back to! This matter of "sowing in both directions" - I think I see how that would help if hand-sowing, but I'm not sure it applies when using a hand-held spreader. That device sprays seed around like a hose and produces a very even coverage (at least to my inexpert eye). I do try to move around and aim from multiple directions but have observed no visible difference at all from doing so.
Separately, though, I feel like I'm missing something fundamental with this concept; I can sow in one direction by laying stepped-up planks across the prepared area and walking back and forth along them (to avoid treading on the tilled soil) while seeding, but I can't do that in another direction (there's nowhere to support the planks). But I also don't see how anyone working with a larger area/less handy pieces of leftover roofing wood could do it at all, really.
Thus far I have been taking "do not walk on the prepared ground" absolutely literally - is it actually possible to get away with some amount of very light traversal before the grass is well-matured, or even sown?
You seem to have quite a lot of advice. Some contradictory - that's life - in the end you have decisions to make.
When I said take soil samples, I was thinking of your doing a sedimentation analysis. That means shwishing yor sample up with water and then letting it settle. Bottom will be stones, next sand, next silt, next clay. top organics, floating not-yet-decomposed organics. For cost reasons you will not be able to change this radically.
But ... Have the stones at the bottom and the sand at the top.
John innes compost would be a good target, ca Grit/clay / silt/sand/peat-substitute all about equal. Buy a bag of quality stuff. Put it in a pot. Wtaer it thoroughly, drain for about 1hour. Grab a handfull and squeeze. It should cling together but otherwise appear quite "open". Do this test on samples from your garden.
Regarding the bulk properties. You need less compaction. but for sport some firmness, and good drainage. A difficult compromise for the inexperienced to judge. Walking on your lawns, heel first, is the best pressure to balance lack of compaction with tennis-playing solidity.
Regarding the seed-lines in your existing lawn. These might be due to overlapping. Keep what you've done and work from there.
Keep at it. There's a summer ahead.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Apologies in advance for this very long post, I don’t know if it’s knowledgable enough but here’s here’s my tuppence worth anyway.
No need to apologise! Any and all comments are gratefully received. I guarantee you're more knowledgeable than I am
I can’t see an awful lot wrong with your methodology but there’s some problems. Firstly, it’s going to be bloody hard work. Sieving, or riddling, as we call it in my area, is a slow backbreaking chore that resides pretty far down the list of jobs I’ll willingly undertake. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and remove the bad stuff before adding the good. Even if that means getting rid of some of the imported soil. A very wise man once told me that when buying topsoil to check it first before they dumped it[...] I’m sorry if this has happened to you, you’re not alone and it’s the kind of thing that gives landscapers a bad name.
Thanks - good to know it's not a totally daft plan I don't mind the physical labour, it's good functional fitness exercise - although of course I'm keen not to be doing it for no reason!
I don't think the groundworkers screwed us over on purpose - we've had a great relationship with them for years now, and in fairness I did ask them to find the best deal they could on decent-looking soil. I do suspect they went beyond the bounds of their expertise a bit with the methodological advice, though.
I don’t know what the levels are like in your garden but at the risk of stating the obvious you’ll be raising said levels when you add sand and compost. This might have a knock on affect for other things. You do not for example want to bury the bottom of your fence spars in soil because they’ll rot quicker. Nor do you want it above the level of your pavers because that’ll happen naturally over time anyway so you may need to re-lay them to raise them up.
When levelling the ground try and acquire a landscape rake if possible because it’s much wider than a standard rake and makes levelling much easier.
Yeah, I'm very conscious of the level issue - we cannot let it change to any significant extent, because whilst most of the blockwork was laid the conventional way on sand the steps up to the garden were mortared in to prevent the risers shifting over time - and the "retaining wall" of concrete gravel boards protecting the original boundary fence from the raised earth level (for exactly the reason you state) is similarly fixed at an exact height.
Assuming we do amendments, I suspect I'm going to have to do some experimentation to establish how much volume of compost/sand I can add, for a given volume of dirt removed, such that the final level after settling is the same as it started out.
A little concerned that you say the level will rise "naturally over time anyway" - I had no idea that was a thing. Is there any way to prevent it?
Buy your seed from a reputable supplier, there are many online and most will sell small quantities. You’ll find very good guidance for the type of mix and amount youll need, probably an amenity mix with a lot of rye grass in it. When you get your seed give the bag a good shake to mix it up because different varieties of seed are heavier than others so heavy tends to make its way to the bottom of the bag as it jiggles about in lorries etc.. You don’t want to be planting swathes of the same variety in big patches so shake em up.
If the current seed doesn't prove to be as hardy as the packaging blithely claims, I will definitely do some deeper research into alternative varieties. I did note the warning about shaking the bag and have been doing so with vigour before weighing any out
Once your grass is up you need to have discipline and keep the kids off it (good luck with that 😂😂) to let it thicken up[...]
Is there a rough guideline for how long the grass should be left to thicken before it's subjected to any use? I think I'd assumed that once it was long enough to mow it was probably safe to walk on, but I've no idea regarding kids running around on it.
It’s only a suggestion but there are alternative ground coverings to children’s play areas eg. forest bark or recycled rubber tiles and they all have their pros and cons. They’re maybe not as nice looking as grass but they might save you a lot of work. Sometimes sitting back and looking at a problem from a different angle can provide good solutions.
I don’t know if any of that leaves you any further forward but I wish you the best of luck.
That's an interesting idea - I don't think it's viable in our case but thank you for the thought, and for the kind wishes
My soil is clayey and I sowed thickly and it's fine. I'm the gardener, my OH is not but as we were seeding the pond he'd dug 30 years ago and filled in 3 years ago and he had the 'Expert' book on lawns, I let him run the show. We topped off with bought-in loam, foot shuffled to firm, lightly raked, used twice the amount of seed shown on the box and finished off with a light going over with lawn rake and used a plank to tap down. Watered using a fine spray. Weeds did come up but judicious plucking took care of them. It still looks different from the rest of the lawn but who cares. @thezealleys7wq9IJP Welcome to the forum and please try to ignore Mr Mow.
Thanks. Good to have further reassurance that clay can produce a decent outcome in some cases!
Neither of us is really a gardener, although we both have aspirations to spend more time on it when the kids are a bit older and less of a handful...
It does sound like I should have been even more heavy-handed with the seed quantity, c.f. the recommendation on the packaging, than I was. Will certainly bear that in mind in future.
Regarding how soon you can walk on a new lawn, the RHS says this:
Use the lawn as little as possible for about eight months. If
autumn-sown, try to avoid using it earlier than June, if spring-sown,
use it as little as possible up to late autumn
1) Spray more or less everything with glyphosate[...]
2) Dig up and sieve all of the soil[...]
3) Bring in some sharp sand and quite a lot of compost[...]
4) If 2 and 3 go unexpectedly quickly, wait at least several weeks post-glyphosate for it to degrade in the soil;
5) Water regularly and heavily[...]
6) Re-rake in autumn to till the top few inches, sow new seed;
7) "Integrate" the seed[...]
8) Flatten down with the walk-along-a-plank method again;
9) Water using an even gentler method[...]
1) No. Or no, no, no ... Couch will be killed by mowing. Other weeds will arrive later anyway. 2) No. Too much hard and unnecessary work. 3) & 4). Yes, but. 5) You can overwater. Natural rain should have done enough. Only the surface for new seed will need a little topping up. 6) & 7). I hope we can save the current germinateed seed. 8) No. For playing tennis you ned a firm surface walking all over on your heels will achieve this. With raking inbetween walks. 9) Yes. But once germinated and rooted the seedlings should not move.
Thank you very much for this point-by-point response!
So if I correctly read your comment on (2), together with your previous post noting that stones on the surface are not OK, I think you're saying you believe it's practical to remove enough of them without sieving the soil to a significant depth? If so, are there any particular tricks to make that process easier/more effective? (Versus simply picking them out one-by-one by hand.) I'm hesitant to rake areas with any significant growth lest I disturb the young grass, although maybe if I buy and use a fan rake that would be gentler...?
I'm a little less sure how to interpret your responses on 3/4 and 6/7. You say yes to bringing in sand and compost, but also that you hope we can save the germinated seed. How would I amend the soil without tilling it and thus destroying the current growth?
Re (8) there is no intention to play tennis, I'm not sure where that came from! Just for the kids to be able to run around/picnic on the grass/play with garden toys
I hope this post was in time to stop precipitate action.
It was indeed in time - realistically I am not sure I will have an opportunity to do much more before it gets too hot to do anything other than attempt to sustain what's already growing, although I'll be trying to get some time in this weekend.
If so, I think - buoyed by the notion that it might not be necessary to start over entirely - I will see if I can re-seed the sparse parts of the existing sown areas, to see whether better coverage can be achieved before the soil temperature gets too high for germination. (But please do shout if that's daft and there's something I could more wisely be doing!)
re Budget. In the future when the grass is growing and the children are playing, giving the lawn a rest from time to time is important. I recommend boarding school.
Regarding how soon you can walk on a new lawn, the RHS says this:
Use the lawn as little as possible for about eight months. If
autumn-sown, try to avoid using it earlier than June, if spring-sown,
use it as little as possible up to late autumn
A little concerned that you say the level will rise "naturally over time anyway" - I had no idea that was a thing. Is there any way to prevent it?
The level rises naturally over time due to the grass growing, worms worming, stuff dying and rotting etc… If you lay slabs in a lawn they will appear to sink over the years but it’s actually the soil level increasing due to the natural progression. You cannot, nor should you waste your time trying to stop it and it happens so slowly only the picky need to re-lay their paths every 15 years or so.
At the risk of being called a “dribbler” have you considered turf? I have used it a few times in the past and found it fairly easy to lay and look after.
@debs64 I'm saying nothing, other than @thezealleys7wq9IJP-, it might be better to do your prep and look at seeding in autumn. Or turfing if you have the budget. You could turf sooner, but be aware about the amount of watering required, which will depend on your location, and how you feel about using it. Autumn weather takes a lot of that stress out of the equation. Good luck with it though - you'll get a decent enough space for the girls to play over time
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Posts
Separately, though, I feel like I'm missing something fundamental with this concept; I can sow in one direction by laying stepped-up planks across the prepared area and walking back and forth along them (to avoid treading on the tilled soil) while seeding, but I can't do that in another direction (there's nowhere to support the planks). But I also don't see how anyone working with a larger area/less handy pieces of leftover roofing wood could do it at all, really.
Thus far I have been taking "do not walk on the prepared ground" absolutely literally - is it actually possible to get away with some amount of very light traversal before the grass is well-matured, or even sown?
When I said take soil samples, I was thinking of your doing a sedimentation analysis. That means shwishing yor sample up with water and then letting it settle. Bottom will be stones, next sand, next silt, next clay. top organics, floating not-yet-decomposed organics. For cost reasons you will not be able to change this radically.
But ... Have the stones at the bottom and the sand at the top.
John innes compost would be a good target, ca Grit/clay / silt/sand/peat-substitute all about equal. Buy a bag of quality stuff. Put it in a pot. Wtaer it thoroughly, drain for about 1hour. Grab a handfull and squeeze. It should cling together but otherwise appear quite "open". Do this test on samples from your garden.
Regarding the bulk properties. You need less compaction. but for sport some firmness, and good drainage. A difficult compromise for the inexperienced to judge. Walking on your lawns, heel first, is the best pressure to balance lack of compaction with tennis-playing solidity.
Regarding the seed-lines in your existing lawn. These might be due to overlapping. Keep what you've done and work from there.
Keep at it. There's a summer ahead.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I don't think the groundworkers screwed us over on purpose - we've had a great relationship with them for years now, and in fairness I did ask them to find the best deal they could on decent-looking soil. I do suspect they went beyond the bounds of their expertise a bit with the methodological advice, though.
Yeah, I'm very conscious of the level issue - we cannot let it change to any significant extent, because whilst most of the blockwork was laid the conventional way on sand the steps up to the garden were mortared in to prevent the risers shifting over time - and the "retaining wall" of concrete gravel boards protecting the original boundary fence from the raised earth level (for exactly the reason you state) is similarly fixed at an exact height.
Assuming we do amendments, I suspect I'm going to have to do some experimentation to establish how much volume of compost/sand I can add, for a given volume of dirt removed, such that the final level after settling is the same as it started out.
A little concerned that you say the level will rise "naturally over time anyway" - I had no idea that was a thing. Is there any way to prevent it?
If the current seed doesn't prove to be as hardy as the packaging blithely claims, I will definitely do some deeper research into alternative varieties. I did note the warning about shaking the bag and have been doing so with vigour before weighing any out
Neither of us is really a gardener, although we both have aspirations to spend more time on it when the kids are a bit older and less of a handful...
It does sound like I should have been even more heavy-handed with the seed quantity, c.f. the recommendation on the packaging, than I was. Will certainly bear that in mind in future.
So if I correctly read your comment on (2), together with your previous post noting that stones on the surface are not OK, I think you're saying you believe it's practical to remove enough of them without sieving the soil to a significant depth? If so, are there any particular tricks to make that process easier/more effective? (Versus simply picking them out one-by-one by hand.) I'm hesitant to rake areas with any significant growth lest I disturb the young grass, although maybe if I buy and use a fan rake that would be gentler...?
I'm a little less sure how to interpret your responses on 3/4 and 6/7. You say yes to bringing in sand and compost, but also that you hope we can save the germinated seed. How would I amend the soil without tilling it and thus destroying the current growth?
Re (8) there is no intention to play tennis, I'm not sure where that came from! Just for the kids to be able to run around/picnic on the grass/play with garden toys
It was indeed in time - realistically I am not sure I will have an opportunity to do much more before it gets too hot to do anything other than attempt to sustain what's already growing, although I'll be trying to get some time in this weekend.
If so, I think - buoyed by the notion that it might not be necessary to start over entirely - I will see if I can re-seed the sparse parts of the existing sown areas, to see whether better coverage can be achieved before the soil temperature gets too high for germination. (But please do shout if that's daft and there's something I could more wisely be doing!)
I'm saying nothing, other than @thezealleys7wq9IJP-, it might be better to do your prep and look at seeding in autumn.
Or turfing if you have the budget. You could turf sooner, but be aware about the amount of watering required, which will depend on your location, and how you feel about using it. Autumn weather takes a lot of that stress out of the equation.
Good luck with it though - you'll get a decent enough space for the girls to play over time
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...