Lovely Lawns
A patch of the glorious green stuff, is there anything more luscious than a lovely lawn? Very often as the spring starts to head towards summer, the lawn may be far from a thing of beauty and pride. Long sunny days coupled with lots of ’traffic’ across it can leave it scorched and bare. However, this year, with all the rain, perhaps the grass is not looking quite as bad as we had anticipated. After all, lawns are made of tough stuff and usually bounce back after a shower.
Between the showers, you may have been able to get out there and trim the lawn, but as the season turns into summer this will turn into a frequent activity, as natural growth becomes more vigorous. Give your lawn a regular light mow over the next month and don’t forget to remove any thatch from cast away clippings, with a rake.
If you want to feed your lawn, choose a spring or summer feed; do not be tempted to use any leftovers from the autumn. They are not the same, they function differently. In the spring, we want to see the colour of lovely lush green grass, whereas an autumn feed will contain lots of nitrogen that will encourage vegetative growth.
However, if you want to improve aeration you will need to use a garden fork to pierce the lawn.This is an invigorating and energetic gardening activity, which helps to break up the structure of the soil and thereby alleviate compaction. If there are still weeds and moss, this is the perfect time to get out the killers, however, after applying the weed killer do not put any lawn clippings onto the compost heap for a few weeks.
Overgrown edges can be improved by trimming with a half moon tool. If you are concerned about cutting away too much and considerably reducing the size of your lawn over time, then there is another way. Cut out a rectangular piece of turf of which one end is the tatty edge, cut a neat slice from the tidy end and place this on the edge of the lawn, thereby creating a neat edge. Use what is left to fill the gap in the lawn; there will be an uneven gap, where the tatty side remains, but this can be easily rectified with a sprinkling of grass seed. Although this method is somewhat time-consuming it can be as satisfying as completing a jigsaw puzzle.
With the help of our tips for a healthy, green lawn you will now be able to enjoy the sunshine and have a few barbecues in a garden without being ashamed of the lawn’s condition.