Grass Clippings - Lawn Advice From a Team of Lawn and Turf Experts

August Lawn Care Advice

As August arrives with us, a warm week ahead is predicted for the South East at least.  In July, there were 13 days with some rain and 22.8mm of rainfall locally to our office and we always state that any rainfall in July is always welcome.

August can be a hard month for the garden and lawn as you spend a lot of time spent on watering the garden and trying to keep it all going and looking great with maybe a family break thrown in for good measure.

Mr Weed becomes President of The RHS

Keith Weed has been appointed president of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Mr Weed's appointment is a triumph for those who believe in what officially is called ‘nominative determinism’, which technically means ‘name-driven outcome’ — the theory that people gravitate towards areas of work or behaviour that reflect their name.

Of course he has. Especially when you hear that his father’s name was Weed and his mother’s name was Hedges.

Managing Editor is a RHS Lawn and Turf Speaker & Judge

Our Managing Editor, Mike Seaton, is a Fellow Member of The Institute of Groundsmanship and has had an extensive career in the turf and lawn industry.

'Being a lawn specialist is a bit like being a Doctor at a party. The lawn is after all the carpet of the room outside and the lawn is often the largest part of the garden and the most neglected by many.'  

Mike has been included in the Royal Horticultural Society Speaker and Judge online listings to give talks about lawns or judge lawns and turf at gardening shows.

Our Managing Editor, Mike Seaton, is a Fellow Member of The Institute of Groundsmanship and has had an extensive career in the turf and lawn industry.

'Being a lawn specialist is a bit like being a Doctor at a party. The lawn is after all the carpet of the room outside and the lawn is often the largest part of the garden and the most neglected by many.'  

Mike has been included in the Royal Horticultural Society Speaker and Judge online listings to give talks about lawns or judge lawns and turf at gardening shows.

Our Managing Editor, Mike Seaton, is a Fellow Member of The Institute of Groundsmanship and has had an extensive career in the turf and lawn industry.

'Being a lawn specialist is a bit like being a Doctor at a party. The lawn is after all the carpet of the room outside and the lawn is often the largest part of the garden and the most neglected by many.'  

Mike has been included in the Royal Horticultural Society Speaker and Judge online listings to give talks about lawns or judge lawns and turf at gardening shows.

Our Managing Editor, Mike Seaton, is a Fellow Member of The Institute of Groundsmanship and has had an extensive career in the turf and lawn industry.

'Being a lawn specialist is a bit like being a Doctor at a party. The lawn is after all the carpet of the room outside and the lawn is often the largest part of the garden and the most neglected by many.'  

Mike has been included in the Royal Horticultural Society Speaker and Judge online listings to give talks about lawns or judge lawns and turf at gardening shows.

Our Managing Editor, Mike Seaton, is a Fellow Member of The Institute of Groundsmanship and has had an extensive career in the turf and lawn industry.

'Being a lawn specialist is a bit like being a Doctor at a party. The lawn is after all the carpet of the room outside and the lawn is often the largest part of the garden and the most neglected by many.'  

Mike has been included in the Royal Horticultural Society Speaker and Judge online listings to give talks about lawns or judge lawns and turf at gardening shows.

Our Managing Editor, Mike Seaton, is a Fellow Member of The Institute of Groundsmanship and has had an extensive career in the turf and lawn industry.

'Being a lawn specialist is a bit like being a Doctor at a party. The lawn is after all the carpet of the room outside and the lawn is often the largest part of the garden and the most neglected by many.'  

Mike has been included in the Royal Horticultural Society Speaker and Judge online listings to give talks about lawns or judge lawns and turf at gardening shows.

How to become a Lawn Expert

An individual with extensive skill and or knowledge in a particular field is said to be an expert.

An expert might be of interest or value to journalist needing information, comment or an interview for a news story or feature as this gets the journalist right to the spot they need to be for their story, saving them a lot of leg work, time and money. The internet has made a researcher’s job so much easier over the last two decades.

There are a lot of people in all professions who claim to be an 'expert' and the lawn care and lawn treatment industry is no exception to this rule.

An individual with extensive skill and or knowledge in a particular field is said to be an expert.

An expert might be of interest or value to journalist needing information, comment or an interview for a news story or feature as this gets the journalist right to the spot they need to be for their story, saving them a lot of leg work, time and money. The internet has made a researcher’s job so much easier over the last two decades.

There are a lot of people in all professions who claim to be an 'expert' and the lawn care and lawn treatment industry is no exception to this rule.

Nematodes - a simple and effective way to control multi garden pests

Forget about the once complicated and daunting world of pest control; the modern domestic gardener uses the sophisticated, yet simple, biological method of simply watering on nematodes.

Nematodes are micro-organisms which occur naturally in the soil where they hunt down and attack pests, with each nematode species having its own specific prey, meaning that they will harm their prey, and only their prey.  BASF has the largest specialist nematode production facility in the EU – and the only one in Britain - growing trillions of beneficial nematodes for use in their Nemasys range of pest controls.

Nematodes are micro-organisms which occur naturally in the soil where they hunt down and attack pests, with each nematode species having its own specific prey, meaning that they will harm their prey, and only their prey.  BASF has the largest specialist nematode production facility in the EU – and the only one in Britain - growing trillions of beneficial nematodes for use in their Nemasys range of pest controls.

Nematodes are micro-organisms which occur naturally in the soil where they hunt down and attack pests, with each nematode species having its own specific prey, meaning that they will harm their prey, and only their prey.  BASF has the largest specialist nematode production facility in the EU – and the only one in Britain - growing trillions of beneficial nematodes for use in their Nemasys range of pest controls.

Nematodes are micro-organisms which occur naturally in the soil where they hunt down and attack pests, with each nematode species having its own specific prey, meaning that they will harm their prey, and only their prey.  BASF has the largest specialist nematode production facility in the EU – and the only one in Britain - growing trillions of beneficial nematodes for use in their Nemasys range of pest controls.

Lawn care products made easy by The Lawn Shop Team

The hard working Team at The Lawn Shop have a variety of lawn care products to help your lawn cope with drought recovery and keep it tip top for the rest of the summer months.

You should have fertilised your lawn twice by now so if you have not, think about making a fertiliser application straight away now this hot and dry weather spell has subsides.  Your lawn will love you for it! The South East of the United Kingdom still has not had sufficient rainfall but every little helps.

You should have fertilised your lawn twice by now so if you have not, think about making a fertiliser application straight away now this hot and dry weather spell has subsides.  Your lawn will love you for it! The South East of the United Kingdom still has not had sufficient rainfall but every little helps.

You should have fertilised your lawn twice by now so if you have not, think about making a fertiliser application straight away now this hot and dry weather spell has subsides.  Your lawn will love you for it! The South East of the United Kingdom still has not had sufficient rainfall but every little helps.

July Lawn Care Advice

July for most of us began on the 4th because this was when the Covid-19 restrictions were relaxed meaning that we could stay over night in others property including guest houses and hotels and also go to the Pub.  Cheers!

The start of July has seen a fair amount of rain to date,  enough to help the lawns get out of the drought stress of April and May with 15 days of rainfall in June.

Concreting over the Green Fields

Britain has concreted over an area of green fields equivalent to the county of Dorset in the past 25 years, satellite analysis shows.

And once farmland lost to urban development is included, the UK has built on land almost the size of Bedfordshire with houses, roads and other infrastructure in the same timespan.

The research showed that 967 square miles (2,505km) of grassland - around the size of Dorset - were lost in terms of grassland, and 433 square miles of farmland (1,123km sq) the size of Bedfordshire - were covered in tarmac, cement and bricks in urban development.

Read more on The Daily Mail

To Seed or Turf a New Lawn?

The decision to renovate your lawn may have arrived because it is too far gone to renovate by trying to introduce some more grasses into the sward or it maybe because the complete garden has had a make over and the lawn is like the carpet of the room outside.

The process of renovating your lawn from a brown field site is the same up to the finished prepared soil surface whether you are seeding or turfing as careful seed bed or turf bed preparation is key should you wish to make life easy for yourself in the short and long term. 

So what are the advantages of using turf to create a lawn?

It is a quicker method of lawn installation, which saves you waiting for seed to grow 

The decision to renovate your lawn may have arrived because it is too far gone to renovate by trying to introduce some more grasses into the sward or it maybe because the complete garden has had a make over and the lawn is like the carpet of the room outside.

The process of renovating your lawn from a brown field site is the same up to the finished prepared soil surface whether you are seeding or turfing as careful seed bed or turf bed preparation is key should you wish to make life easy for yourself in the short and long term. 

So what are the advantages of using turf to create a lawn?

It is a quicker method of lawn installation, which saves you waiting for seed to grow 

Choosing Lawn Grass Seed

A trip to your local garden centre or DIY outlet may be a bit daunting when viewing the shelves of grass seed and selecting one to suit the needs of your lawn.

Make sure you go armed with the dimensions of your lawn and known square metres of lawn area so you buy sufficient for the task plus 25% to allow for a margin of error on the day.

First think of the immediate needs of you lawn, does it need to be hard wearing, cope with general family life, the children and dogs or is it mostly shaded, wet, dry, or are you after a luxury lawn that you can trim every other day with your cylinder mower?

First think of the immediate needs of you lawn, does it need to be hard wearing, cope with general family life, the children and dogs or is it mostly shaded, wet, dry, or are you after a luxury lawn that you can trim every other day with your cylinder mower?

Recovering Stressed & Damaged Lawns

The natural water loss from the surface of the lawn can be up to 7mm per hour when the temperature is 25 degrees during the warmest hours of the day.

Application of a Wetting Agent like Lawn Quencher will ensure that any water applied will break through any hydrophobic soil areas to make water wetter and the act of watering or rainfall will be more effective.

Spare a thought for your Lawn

The weather is very warm and dry and your lawn will be getting stressed out with the natural water evapo-transpiration loss which could be up to 7mm per hour.

The Team at The Lawn Shop have a wide range of lawn care treatments available to spread or spray and their online Lawn Shop is open all weekend for your convenience.

There are also pages of great lawn care advice too.  Fill your boots.

Visit The Lawn Shop

Garden Sprayer Dilemma

Here's the dilemma. You have a lawn or gravel driveway where there are weeds and you need to treat them to get rid.

You purchase the control products, get the garden sprayer out and follow the label and mix up the treatment solution and then get to work applying product.

Solving Lawn Worm Casts

CastClear is an unique non-pesticidal nutrient that increases turf health and deters lawn soil casts.

It suppresses and deters earthworms from being in the upper reaches of the soil where their casts cause so many problems on the lawns surface.

CastClear contains more than 5% amino nitrogen with more than 15% bio-organic sulphur.

Ten Interesting Facts about Earthworms

Are Earthworms a Garden's Friend of Foe? That depends.  Here are 10 things you may want to know about earthworms:

1. Earthworms come in a seemly infinite variety—around 6,000 species worldwide.

One of the most familiar of them, the sort you may see in your garden, is commonly known as the night crawler (it typically surfaces after dark), the angleworm (its makes popular bait for fishing) or the rain worm (it leaves waterlogged soil after storms).

2. Of the more than 180 earthworm species found in the U.S. and Canada, 60 are invasive species, brought over from the Old World, including the night crawler.

3. Lacking lungs or other specialized respiratory organs, earthworms breathe through their skin.

Are Earthworms a Garden's Friend of Foe? That depends.  Here are 10 things you may want to know about earthworms:

1. Earthworms come in a seemly infinite variety—around 6,000 species worldwide.

One of the most familiar of them, the sort you may see in your garden, is commonly known as the night crawler (it typically surfaces after dark), the angleworm (its makes popular bait for fishing) or the rain worm (it leaves waterlogged soil after storms).

2. Of the more than 180 earthworm species found in the U.S. and Canada, 60 are invasive species, brought over from the Old World, including the night crawler.

3. Lacking lungs or other specialized respiratory organs, earthworms breathe through their skin.