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

Beating the Drought

With temperatures set to hit 35 degrees early next week in the South East, and no long term rain forecast for the next six days at least, we may need to adopt a Keep Calm and Carry On attitude ahead of any looming water restrictions in the garden. 

Turf grasses are tougher than you might think.  There are lots of things you can do to your lawn to keep it looking healthy and beat the drought in the long and short term.

A drought is only 13 days without rain and we have had no rain in July to date and it the 13th today. Add in the fact that April and May were dryer than average months then it is really easy to see how a water defecit has built up.  It does not have to be nice and sunny like in the summer of 1976 for there to be a drought and you would have still needed to water your garden over the past winter period.

Lawn Quencher™ Tablets - The Solution to Lawn Hydration

Lawn Quencher™ Tablets - The Solution to Lawn Hydration.  Lawn Quencher - Wetting Agent Tablet

Your lawn may look a little soggy currently with the recent heavy rainfall but spare a thought of the localised dry patches on the surface once the gravitational water pulls through. Dry crusty patches where the grass is simply not growing despite the rain. Puzzling. Put a gardening knife into the dry patchy area and cut out a 2 cm cube to inspect. You will note that the soil is still really dry and smells musty.

Look for the Lawn Dry Patch Dark Halo

Dry patches that are hard to re-wet are the primary causes of lawn failure.  If a lawn is renovated, it is always these long-lasting dry areas that are the root cause of any seed failing to germinate and establish in these well marked and visual areas. 

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.

Shop for Lawn Care Products Now

It's been a bit of a late spring, even though it is technically early summer but now is the time to shop for lawn care products now in readiness of spending more time out in the garden.

The lawn is after all the carpet of the room outside and enjoyed by all of the family, especially when the sun shines and you can get the BBQ out.

As we enter the Easter weekend holiday, time to sit back and relax and enjoy yourself.

Spray Dye for Garden Sprayers

It is now time to get out in the garden and catch up with your lawn and garden weed control.

How much easier it would be to make garden chemical treatments if you can see where you have an have not sprayed by colouring the spray solution with a spray indicator dye called Indigo Garden Spray Dye.

Your treatment experience will be a bit like painting by numbers when your were five in play group.

Buying Grass Seed for your Lawn

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?

Professional Lawn Care Products at a Click

These days, there is not much you cannot purchase over the internet.  The great thing about the internet is that you can connect with suppliers of some of the oddest items for sale. 

Years ago you could only buy a cooker from the High Street and now it's probably the last place you may look to select a particular item or model prior to purchase.

These days, there is not much you cannot purchase over the internet.  The great thing about the internet is that you can connect with suppliers of some of the oddest items for sale. 

Years ago you could only buy a cooker from the High Street and now it's probably the last place you may look to select a particular item or model prior to purchase.

These days, there is not much you cannot purchase over the internet.  The great thing about the internet is that you can connect with suppliers of some of the oddest items for sale. 

Years ago you could only buy a cooker from the High Street and now it's probably the last place you may look to select a particular item or model prior to purchase.

These days, there is not much you cannot purchase over the internet.  The great thing about the internet is that you can connect with suppliers of some of the oddest items for sale. 

Years ago you could only buy a cooker from the High Street and now it's probably the last place you may look to select a particular item or model prior to purchase.

Control Lawn Pests with Nematodes

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.

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.

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.

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.

No Mow May

The ultimate concept of No Mow May is not really to stop mowing in May specifically, or to leave whole swathes of your lawn unmown. Behind the catchy title is a simple concept: get people to change their habits so that they mow less – ideally once a month – and possibly even leave a patch or two of grass to grow long.

In our view, just getting your lawn out of winter and into spring and summer takes a lot of work and effort.  Letting your lawn go wild for a month will undo all your hard work and create a thin sward.

How to Scarify a Lawn

Scarification or Scarifying is an essential part of cultured turf or lawn management. It is carried out with hand tools such as a Spring Bok Hand Rake or, for larger areas, purpose built machinery called a Scarifier. The aim of scarifying is to produce a healthy vertical type growth of desirable grasses, to improve the turf surface and appearance. Very light scarification (like with a drag brush or rake on a cylinder mower) is used simply to raise the leaves of the grass in the sward before mowing, to leave a smarter looking finish.

Happy Easter from the Grass Clippings Team

Easter Holidays are upon us and the big get away has commenced!

The weather has taken a turn for the better with temperatures a lot warmer hovering around 15 degrees for the weekend with a warm feel about it too.

If you are planning to be at home, Easter is traditionally a big DIY weekend at home with the Garden Centres and DIY Stores expecting hughe volumes of customers to get their tills ringing.

Lawn Advice at your fingertips

The Team at Grass Clippings are pleased to boast that lawn owners have at their disposal on this Lawn Blog over 1,600 lawn related technical pages covering the wide technical subject of lawns and their care. This Lawn Blog is living up to it's name -'Grass Clippings - Home of the British Lawn.'

Our lawn advice blog site has had the articles read over 3,000,000 times by Visitors seeking sound advice on their green swards.

Whether you are after a little bit of advice on summer lawn care, or lawn pests, or some advice on controlling moss, scarifying your lawn or the source of a reputable turf supplier, you will find all the answers here on this lawn advice site.

Virtual Lawn Consultancy now available from The Lawn Company

Now you can book an online session via Zoom with a Lawn & Turf Consultant and benefit from a one to one verbal assessment of your lawn areas.

During the virtual session, we will :-

Email you a quick lawn pre-questionnaire, ask you to measure the lawn areas and send over some images prior to the commencement of the call of the problems your lawn is experiencing.

Aeration - Why & How

In a wet winter similar to the one we have just experienced, failure to carry out a programme of lawn aeration can lead to an entirely different problem. This is when surface sealing can often occur, due to the compacting effect of trampling feet and heavy maintenance machinery.

Under these conditions, water is prevented from percolating; it will remain on the surface, restricting gaseous exchange and lead to moss or the build up of fibrous growth. If steps are not taken to relieve the compaction, a fibrous matt develops, restricting the amount of air, moisture and nutrients available to the grasses and creating ideal conditions for diseases to thrive.

Too early to Scarify your Lawn?

We are noticing a lot of traffic generated on this lawn advice blog site about scarifying your lawn.  Is it too early to perform this important mechnical task?

The quick answer is do not attempt to scarify the lawn until you have given the lawn its first or ideally second mow of the season and you have applied Soluble Iron to control the Winter Moss.

At such time, your lawn must be able to put on some natural recovery growth so performing this important mechanical lawn task too early in the year is complete madness and not very good for your lawn either.