Grass Clippings

Norfolk County Council use Sheep instead of Mowers

Council Chiefs at Norfolk County Council are training Sheep to trim the grass surrounding their council Headquarters in Norwich in a bid to reduce their carbon footprint.

County hall bosses are keen to create a cloven-hoofed footprint instead of an anti-environmental carbon one through fuelled grass-cutting machines although they admit that they are at the early stages in evaluating the possibility of having four legged lawn mowers at this stage.

Wimbledon and Rain

We are fully aware that the two weeks of tennis at Wimbledon instantly heralds rain and more rain, making the organisation of the tennis championships difficult.  http://aeltc.wimbledon.org

The Team with the hardest job are The Groundstaff who are often neglected by the BBC Sports coverage of the event.  The Head Groundsman Eddie Seaward has been responsible for the courts since 1991 since the retirement of Jim Thorn.  He manages a permanent Team of 14 staff plus an extra 12 leading up to and during the championships. 

Lawn Experts and Red Thread Disease

At The Lawn Society our mission is to give visitors to this site and lawn owners an insight into the level of turf cultural knowledge that is available on the internet, on and away from this site www.grassclippings.co.uk.

One particular web site we came across was www.lawnexperts.co.uk.  A web site set up by a marketing and software development company with other 'expert' web sites under their corporate banner.

To be honest, the web site looks good, follows a corporate template and publices the brand of this and their other web sites they are responsible for.

Browsing the web sites contents, the section on lawn diseases includes reference to getting an experts opinion on a particular lawn disease.  Look no further than their web site....

Airports, Weeds and the UK Smoking Ban

One a recent trip to South West France to meet with a business associate, my trip obviously took me to a small regional airport. The airport buildings were rustic compared to Heathrow and Gatwick and undergoing development to cope with the demand in use mainly from British people with primary and secondary residences in the area.

The building surrounds were weedy and untidy, not making a great impression to a traveller. The grass areas surrounding the airport buildings and car parks were also full of weeds and exhibiting an air of being unkempt.

Stay off the lawn and it will treat you kindly

Alan Titchmarsh gives some sensible advice in the Daily Express about staying off of your lawn in the early part of the year or after heavy rain to avoid compaction and damaging the surface.

There is also a great tip about using a roll out path when running backwards and forwards with a wheelbarrow to avoid causing ruts with the wheel.

Photo The Telepgraph

The Government to impose £50 tax

The government is set to impose a £50 tax on home owners to remove their grass clippings.

In an article run by the Mail it is claimed that, despite rising councils taxes and reduced waste collections the government is set to infuriate home owners bi introducing a tax to remove your grass cuttings and recycle them.

Shoot adds Lawns to its site

Shoot, the gardening website has added lawns as a category that can be searched in it's on line database.

It comes at a time when lawns are starting to get a few people inspired rather than the borders themselves. Here at The Lawn Society we aim to reconcile the lawn with the border and the rest of the garden which has become divorced and disenfranchised for too long.

Spoof awards for Chelsea turf

The fallout continues about the poor lawn and grass issues at Chelsea.

Horticulture Week has just run it on their website so we will keep an eye on developments.

" Lawns need boost at Chelsea, group claims.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show has drawn scorn from a lawn champion who awarded spoof medals as a “poke in the ribs” to organisers who allowed dog-eared turf around show gardens."

Lawn Society Forum

We are in the process of moving all of our previous database to the new site and part of that is the forum.

We have 710 registered users of the forum and it is our intention to promote our forums back to centre stage.

Visit the forums here

A bit about Mike Seaton, the Founder of the Lawn Society

Being a lawn specialist is a bit like being a Doctor at a party. 

A friend of mine is a Doctor, who when at a social gathering where the majority of people do not know he is a Doctor (as they have never met him before) enquires as to his profession; he tells them that he is an Undertaker.  This action stops the deluge of questions seeking advice on a particular health matter or problem.

Being into grass and lawns is exactly the same for me.  I keep a folded up £20.00 note in my wallet for the first person who spontaneously informs me that they have a great lawn when the conversation gets round to my profession. 

Technical Leaflets now available online

We have today added the first in a series of downloadable PDF files covering some of the common lawn problems.  They are priced at a very modest £1.00 each and can be saved to your hard disk.

Membership to the Lawn Society, which starts at £25.00 will allow you access to all of these files, plus much more for £25.00.

What the press are saying about us

We have already covered the Times Online and their coverage of the 'spoof' awards but here is the link.

Landscape Juice - Philip Voice, according to his bios is a life long gardener and he certainly has posted a nice bit of coverage, in his own words of course, about how we have tickled the ribs - the full poke comes next year - of The Royal Horticultural society.