Grass Clippings

Love your lawn on Valentine's Day

The history of Valentine's Day and the story of its patron saint is shrouded in mystery.

We do know that February has long been celebrated as a month of romance, and that St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. But who was Saint Valentine, and how did he become associated with this ancient rite?

Just the lawn tonic the Doctor ordered...

After the snow of the past few weeks, the lawns in the South East of the UK are slowly becoming visible again now temperatures are a little higher and there is some evidence of the snow melting.  There are a lot of sportsfields and fairways that are still 100% covered in snow.

The lawn's surface and ground may still be a little frozen so not a lot you can do to a lawn currently until the frost comes out of the ground for good.

Controlling Lawn Worm Casts

Lawn worm casts are a bit of a pain  at this time of the year until spring time, especially after the snow melts and the frost comes out of the ground. 

The worms eat the soil and then discard it on the lawns surface leaving it there for the dog to pick up the small mound of soil on their paws or on your shoes when you walk over the lawn.

There are just five types of worms in the UK that throw up what turf professionals call a lawn worm cast.  The worms spend the drier months burrowing deeper in the soil, eating the organic matter in the soil, extracting it's goodness. 

Lawn Expert or Lawn Specialist

An Expert is defined as a person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.

A Specialist is defined as a person who specializes in or devotes herself/himself to a particular area of activity or field of research, etc.

There are therefore Lawn Experts and Lawn Specialists who can both lay claim to knowing a thing about lawns. 

When to start mowing the lawn

We have been noticing on our search stats that a lot of the queries relate to the timing of the first grass cut of the season.

I am not sure if the searcher is actually expecting to get a result with a specific date when the lawn comes to life. The answer to the question is - There is no set time or defining moment when you need to get onto your lawn.

No two lawns are the same and no two gardens, even if they are side by side, are the same so it follows that any advice given here may well be appropriate for one lawn owner and not for the next.

First Aid tonic for lawns in January

January is a hard month for lawns and turf especially after a prolonged period of snow and frost. It is always nice to see a green lawn over the winter but trying to achieve that result without the use of lawn fertiliser is a little hard to do.

Help is at hand in the shape of Sulphate of Iron, Iron Sulphate as it is also called, an active ingredient of Lawn Sand. Iron Sulphate will provide some much needed colour to your turf in the almost dormant grass growing months and the effect of application will provide a much need boost to 'lift' the lawn and it's colour when help is needed most.

Putting the puzzle together

The  subject of lawns and their care puzzle many a lawn owner.  Many are simply scared of their lawn.

Lots of lawn owners perform the religious tasks of feeding their lawn in the spring time but not throughout the rest of the year. 

Some respect the mechanical operations such as mowing, scarification and aeration are important but many get these tasks in the incorrect order when performing a lawn renovation programme.  It is easy to grow grass, the hardest part is turning the grass into a lawn.

Sound advice to help your lawn large or small

The nice people at The Lawn Company have for many years provided a lawn consultancy service to lawn owners with small, large and very large lawns. 

These lawn areas may also include croquet lawns, bowling greens and other professional turf areas such as tennis courts and football clubs.

When NOT to Scarify your Lawn

There is a standing 'joke' in the professional turf industry that starts when the United Kingdom received it's first snowfall.  To be honest, it gets the on line message boards red hot.

The joke is at the expense of one of the large lawn treatment companies who insist that the winter through to the spring time is the best time to scarify your lawn. 

 

When to stop mowing your lawn

Parts of the United Kingdom have had snow fall already with more promised for the rest of us.

When the frost and snow is on the lawn, it is obvious that mowing your lawn is the last thing on your mind.  In the milder South East of England, the grass is still growing, slow but still growing.

There is still time to give your lawn it's last mow of the year.  Mowing the lawn will really lift the appearance of the complete garden ahead of the holiday season.  Once mown, get your mower into the lawn mower service centre ready for spring time.

Prepare for the arrival of Winter

Gales, Snow, Frost, Cold, Christmas... familiar words at the moment. 

Winter officially starts on December 22nd this year and surprisingly, it is quite mild in the South East and the grass is still growing, albeit at a slower rate than a month ago. 

The turf grasses will not stop growing but it will be a little difficult for new grass seed to germinate out of the formal growing season. 

Winter lawn disease - know what to look for

Fusarium Disease on turf usually appears as small orange/brown circular spots of approx 50mm in diameter, which under favourable conditions may join together with other affected areas and completely cover a lawn. 

Under humid, still conditions, you will notice a white, grey cotton wool like mycelium forming as a small mound on the surface of the lawn.  You will note an orange brown tinge to the circumference of the affected areas with mushy matted grass within.  Early diagnosis is important, especially over the winter and spring months.

Slime Mould Disease

Slime Moulds are not commonly seen on lawns and when they do, they can provide some stunning examples as the picture shows. 

This picture was taken in Avebury in Wiltshire on one of the many historic stone circles that are located in the area a few weeks ago.

All grass species can be affected by the disease and occurrence.  Symptons of the disease are only seen when the coloured spores which can vary from grey to white or yellow to purple appear on the turf grass blades. 

November Lawn Jobs

Don't forget your lawn this month!  There is always something that can be done to a lawn throughout the year and the late autumn months are no exception.

The grass has not yet stopped growing, not that it fully will, and before you get totally swept up in the coming holiday season of Thanks Giving and Christmas, there are a few jobs you could complete on your lawn to get it in shape for Winter. 

Top Ten Lawn Mistakes than can be prevented....

Lawn care is a science and like all sciences there is a requirement to follow a sequence like a flow chart and also to keep everything in balance too. 

Tip the scales or be too reactive and your lawn will suffer, get diseased, go thin and less dense and sometimes die.

In no particular order, here are some of the errors we see when out and about visiting lawns:

1. Mowing too low and infrequently and always in the same direction

Well, that's a three in one to start!  It is important to mow at least weekly in the main growing season and continue to mow throughout the early spring and winter months too if ground conditions permit and the grass is growing albeit slowly.  Why do lawn owners mow their lawns so short too?   Do not remove any more than 25% of the grass growth each time you mow and nothing less than 12mm in height unless you have a super dooper fine lawn like a bowling green.  Most grasses are tufted in growth so change the mowing direction each time you mow to keep the grasses growing upright.

Cooler Autumn Nights

Sounds like a song from The Bee Gees!  One great misconception is the time when lawn owners decide to put the mower away in the shed or garage and do not get out again until the spring time.

You should still be mowing your lawn.  It's growth may have slowed quite considerably over the past few weeks with the drop in night-time temperatures but it is still quite warm and the turf grasses are still growing well. 

Mowing the lawn really 'lifts' an autumn garden and handy for picking up a few leaves too instead of raking them off the lawns surface. 

Take advantage of the fine weather during the daytime and get out there and rake or blow the leaves up so that they do not smother the lawn grasses, resulting in bare areas over the autumn.

Rust on your lawn

We are now in the autumn months and that time in the autumn when you go outside and shrug your shoulders at the dropping night time temperatures. 

Not suggesting that the summer is over as the weather might be unseasonably warmer this weekend after a lot of rain - I have just measured 11 cm of water in a trug that had been left out collecting rainwater over the past two weeks!

The last time I thought about treating Rust was on my old Mini Metro that was rather prone to it on the front panels - well it was almost a 100 rust bucket to be honest!  Glad to see that car construction has moved on a bit since the early 80's. 

Now we bet you were not aware of the fact that your lawn can suffer from an outbreak of Rust?

Lawn Treatment Companies Vs Do it yourself

What the majority of lawn owners require is clear, concise and consistent advice.  We live in a service industry world and having your lawn treated is a bit like getting your laundry done.

Increasingly, we note on our travels that lawn owners are trying one or more of the many lawn treatment companies for a couple of years and then seeking a change, more often than not reverting back towards looking after their lawns themselves now that the weeds and moss have gone and the grass quality and density is so much better than it was before the lawn treatment company were employed.  They also get complete control over the annual lawn treatment programme and do away with missed visits, inflexible treatments and mechanical programmes and direct debits.

Autumn Leaves and Colour

After the hottest September and start to October, the temperatures have dipped to slightly above their seasonal norm this week, a far cry of the 30 degrees at the weekend! 

Now is the time to start working on your lawn before too many leaves fall on it and the frosts appear.  Your thoughts should be warming towards fertilising your lawn and it is not too late to apply a summer fertiliser at the full rate or apply it at half the summer rate.  The clever technology of The Lawn Shop Granular Lawn Fertilisers means that the nutrients will stop releasing once it gets cooler yet when the soil warms up in the spring, it will stop releasing again - clever!

Autumn Lawn Care Tips

Autumn officially arrives a little later this month and an ideal time to plan your autumn lawn renovation programme.

This year the lawns took a caning with the early drought and the well cared for lawns survived the best - survival of the fittest.  Any still dry and non grass areas should be worked on with a wetting agent tablet to try and cure the soil bourne problem.  Nothing will grow where the soil is so dry because it has become hydrophobic.

The majority of lawns are only fertilised once a year, usually in the spring.  Every lawns should be fertilised at least three to four times a year, once every three months with different nutrient products throughout the year.   There is still time to selective weed control your lawns and get rid of the weeds that thrived during the recent drought.  The nice people at The Lawn Shop can quickly supply you with your requirements.

Lawn Mushrooms

Yesterday, it finally happened!! I viewed little round mushrooms on one of my lawns for the first time this year. They had broken out in force. The strange thing is that they were not there over the weekend when the lawn had been mown..... scary stuff. One day they were not and the next day they were - best not mess with them if they can grow that quickly. We are often asked about the reasons why mushrooms appear in lawns when they have never done so in the past. It seems that mushrooms on your lawn(s) puts the fear of God into lawn owners.

Tips on aerating a lawn

Lawn enthusiasts will go to great lengths, not to mention expense, to work on the top surface of their lawn but totally neglect, and in many cases fail to understand, what is necessary below ground to keep the grass roots healthy and aerated.

I can imagine the shopping trolleys at the garden centre full of autumn lawn feed, sulphate of iron to combat any moss and perhaps some soil and seed to reinstate low and bare patches where the grass may have failed through the year but I somehow feel that spiking is not on most lawn owners to-do list.

Sadly, lawn aeration - some prefer to call it spiking or tining - is the very last thing that gets attention. Maybe because it is a procedure that will not create an instant effect or tangible result in a short space of time. 

Should you stop mowing your lawn in the autumn and winter?

It is a common question we are asked at Grass Clippings and our response is you should never stop mowing your lawn over the autumn or winter months. The rate of growth and mowing yield will dramatically reduce as the night and day time temperatures drop but the grass will never actually stop growing and you should always be prepared to mow it little and often. The grasses in the lawn much like the plants in the garden do not hibernate over the winter and early spring months - they still grow but so much slower - on tick over.

Advice on top dressing a lawn

Top dressing a lawn is the term used to describe the careful application of a loam, sand or clay material to the surface of a lawn to restore the micro levels. The term is often confused with a fertiliser application as a 'dressing'. Top dressing is typically applied in the autumn after scarification and aeration and over seeding when around 8mm or 1/4 of an inch of material is applied and worked into the lawns' surface.

Dry Patch areas in your lawn

Dry Patch is a little know problem of turf in amateur lawn cirlces but one that has an incredible impact in ensuring consistent colour, growth, nutrient status, run of the ball and most of all visual impact and continuity of grass cover.

You may notice a darkening halo on parts of the lawn, visible from the upstairs window. This is a good indicator that the soil underneath is starting to or has dried out. This little known phenomenon is not only related to drought conditions but even if you are watering the lawn on a regular basis all throughout the year, some areas will still never become wet naturally to a depth, thus promoting grass growth in these areas. The surface of these areas will become dry and crusty and thatchy and be void of grass that cannot grow without water.

A Wetting Agent is used to alleviate localised ‘Dry Patch’ areas on a lawn or grass area. These areas have appeared because the soil-acting bacteria have made the soil hydrophobic (repelling water) and until you can get these areas wet again, nothing will grow. A bit like trying to wet an old bathroom sponge, almost impossible.

Time to improve you lawn mowing habits

Visit any professional Green keeper's office and you will see two clocks on the wall. The first clock is the one that signals the time for lunch and home time. The hands on the other one do not move as fast, but they do change daily - to advise the green keeping team the direction of the mowing of the golf greens for the day. The next day, the direction will change and the clock will announce this change.

Controlling Leatherjackets in your lawn

There are a few lawn pests that will eat away at your grass roots thus destroying a lawn and one of them is Leatherjackets - the larvae of the Daddy Long Legs or Crane Fly to be technically correct.

We have passed the time of the year when the adults are flying around and being batted by the Cat but their work as adults is now done! They have laid their numerous eggs in your nice green sward and soon they will be hatching into hungry larvae ready to start attacking your nice new grass roots. Never ever underestimate the damage that a troop of Leatherjacket larvae can inflict on a grass area.

Controlling Ants in your lawn

The unseasonally dry weather for April has led to a dramatic increase in the number of ant hills in lawns. It is not the ants that are a problem, mostly their anthills that are like mini mole hills across the lawn. Ants prefer living in dry light soils and are capable of shifting a large proportion of soil onto the lawn's surface, causing havoc with the mower as these raised areas will get easily 'scalped' by the action of mowing.

Dog urine burns in lawns

All lawn owners with dogs have been there. Their green lawns polka dotted with brown pee marks from their beloved pooch. There are the many old wive's tales of adding tomato juice into their dogs' food or water bowl to reduce the impact of their dog urine burn mark on the lawn.

The Team at Grass Clippings have been busy trialing a new product that actually works! They have also given some consideration to repairing the damage afterwards, one that is 'soil less' and very effective.

Lawn Edging Options

One of the most important aspects of a lawn is the grass content and density but also as important the lawn edge where it meets a pathway, driveway or flower border.  

In the scenario where the lawn meets a flower border, over time because of the foot traffic of the gardener tending to the border, the edges of the lawn will naturally dip down towards the border.  Alongside the edges of driveways, lawns will soon get driven over or driveway material through up onto the lawn making mowing hazardous.