Scarifying: what is it?
Desthemoaner
Posts: 191
Having inherited this garden with its interestingly undulating lawn last July, we also agreed to pay for the services of a local lawncare company after they contacted us and advised that the previous owner used them to keep the lawn healthy.
We've had 3 quarterly treatments so far, and after the last one they recommended "scarifying" the lawn at a cost of 80 quid. Pardon my ignorance, but I think this has something to do with removing moss and other detritus from the lawn surface.
My question is this: would it be cost effective to buy the equipment and do this myself, and if I did, what else would I need to do to the lawn to keep it looking good and moss free? Is scarifying something which would always need to be done annually or is there anything you can do to restrict the growth of moss and make removal unnecessary in the future?
Thanks in advance.
Posts
I use a rake and remove moss and thatch in spring and autumn. Good exercise as you need to be rigorous! Unless you have a super large lawn than that is all you really need to do.
I'm afraid I am bit of a lazy gardener
who prefers the planting, pruning, pottering side of gardening to the annual chores which (for me at least) require a lot of discipline to do. I am all for delegating those tasks...
If I had a very small lawn I would (probably) do the work myself - with either a rake as above or buy a small electric scarifier per Verdun's suggestion. I have always found the amount of moss and thatch produced is quite amazing and the job takes much longer than I thought it would.
If you have a larger lawn I'd be tempted to let them do the job once and see how much thatch etc they get out. You can then make the decision whether to do it yourself in future or pay them to do it - perhaps every other year. Larger scarifiers are quite expensive to buy & it would probably cost nearly as much to hire one as the company are charging to do the work.
Word of warning - I would be wary of putting the moss / thatch produced in the compost bin. The moss takes forever to rot down and may well contain traces of weed and moss killer which you wouldn't really want to spread round your borders.
Add to my post above
Looking at the names above I think I might be in a minority of one here being female??
Have always found that tending grass / lawn & other groundsman's duties is much more popular with men than women. That might explain why I much prefer to spend my time doing things other than tending a lawn but the others don't seem to mind
No offence taken Edd
Regarding the composting: I have to agree that general thatch (ie dead grass) is good for composting - but my previous lawn was very, very mossy when I inherited it (maybe 30 - 40% of the lawn area) - and it was the moss that just didn't seem to rot down as quickly as other material - and there was a lot of it!
After I started using a lawn company to treat (feed & weed etc) the lawn they advised me not to compost any scarified material as they were concerned about residual weedkiller in the moss. I would imagine they were providing the same sort of service as the company visiting Des and, presumably, using the same sort of chemicals - hence the heads-up.
Regarding scarifying twice a year - I'm sure you are right but not for lazy old me i'm afraid. I regard tending the lawn as a necessary evil & I'm afraid I do as little as possible to keep it looking half decent (I tell you - immaculate lawns - it's a man thing
)
Thank you all very much for your contributions. Without lifting a finger I already feel like a scarifying expert.
Difficult to say how big our lawn is. The garden is probably about 120 feet from front to back and about sixty feet wide, the lawn taking up around about two thirds of that area. Probably too big to do by hand, not least because a lot of the grassed area is fairly steeply sloped. However I like a challenge, and unlike some problems around the house which may or may not offer DIY solutions, I'm beginning to find that working in the garden is a pleasure and not a chore. So I think buying a scarifier may well be the way to go on this occasion.
I'll do some more research, and thanks again.
Just had a look at the Wolf Garten roller moss remover which is mentioned on one of your links, Edd.
Might well invest in one of those and take it from there.
It also depends how old you are. I am having someone to treat the lawn because I have recently moved into this house and there are many things I want to do to the garden, like create a veg patch and get rid of all the gravel that has been put on the garden for "low maintenance".