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

Lawn Treatment Company 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. 

Blue Diamond Group become CastClear Stockists

The Guernsey based garden centre group, Blue Diamond with 16 garden centres located in The Channel Islands and around the United Kingdom have recently agreed to stock the worm cast deterrent, CastClear on their shelves.

Blue Diamond have traced their history to The Channel Islands back to 1589 and their garden centres include Redfields nr Fleet Hampshire and Trentham in Stoke on Trent Staffordshire.  The group employs 1,100 people and their destination garden centres receive in excess of 3,000,000 visitors per annum.

Expert Lawn Care Advice

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. 

Moss control in lawns

Moss and Moss control in lawns is a practice normally performed in the autumn and spring lawn care months. If the grass plants activity has thinned or weakened over the past 12 months, now is the time to start Moss control and eradication and some mechanical operations just ahead of over seeding the lawn to turn the tide on the moss.

Moss is traditionally controlled and killed using Sulphate of Iron. This is the constituent of lawn feeds that will always turn the moss black just ahead of scarification to remove it some two weeks following application.

Spare a thought for your lawn

Spare a thought for your lawn and garden this weekend if the weather is dry and mild and blow away the New Year holiday blues with some much needed fresh air in the garden!

Make sure that you have blown or raked up all of the leaves and debris and trimmed the edges. 

It is not too early in the year to mow your lawn so don’t think that you are getting off lightly and hide the mower in the garden shed until the spring time and head out to the shops or golf club!  The weather is really mild for the start of January but a cold snap is promised and some areas do have snowfall.  Only mow if  ground conditions permit and the lawn really needs a quick tidy up.

Quintessential English humour at it's best

With the 51,000 tonne cargo vessel 'Hoegh Oska' aground on the Bramble Bank at the entrance of Southampton Water, the English humour is in full flow about this unfortunate incident.

This 'Dear Sir' letter appeared in The Times today and relates to the cricket match that is played annually on The Bramble Bank at the lowest astronomical tide between members of The Royal Southern Yacht Club and Cowes based Island Sailing Club.

It made me smile...

Controlling Garden Weeds

A couple of friends recently came up with the same comment following their attempts at weed control in their gardens.  They had both applied a branded total weed killer on their gravel and pathways and remarked after a few days following application that "The weeds have not gone yet."

When I asked of them "When did you apply the control product?" they said only a few days ago to which I replied "You are expecting too much, please be patient."  Their observations on the speed of the mode of action of single active ingredient or a blend of active ingredients is rather common so a little bit of advice may be required in choice of product for the time of year follows.

CastClear - Lawn Worm Cast Deterrent Product - Stockist Opportunities

The worms are great for the lawn, their casts not.  Amateur lawn owners have struggled for decades with the conundrum of how to control the earthworm casts across their lawn during the months of September to April.

Help is now available in a clever new product that is available NOW in 234 Garden Centres.  The product is called CastClear and it comes in a handy one litre bottle that will treat up to 500 square metres.  If applied to a lawn when there is worm activity the number of worm casts on the lawn will dramatically reduce and when re applied every two to three weeks at a lower dose rate, control will be achieved and retained.

NPTC Pesticide Training accreditation

The National Proficiency Tests Council - NPTC is the largest nationally recognised awarding body within the landbased sector with a history going back to the Young Farmer's Club Movement in the 1930s when the achievement of skill was encouraged through competitions at club, region and county level.

The aim of The NPTC is to promote competence and professionalism in the workforce of the land-based and related industries by the encouragement of continuous learning and the recognition of skill.

Klondyke Strikes Garden Centres now stock CastClear

From small beginnings in a single greenhouse at Kirkintilloch back in the 1980’s, Bob and Dorothy Gault laid down the roots of what has grown into Klondyke Garden Centres; a completely family owned, independent group of garden centres.

Today, they are every Gardener's Garden Centre and are now stocking CastClear, the lawn worm cast deterrent and suppressant.

Having bought a struggling garden centre site from which to run their camping supplies company, the couple’s green fingered skills and vision came to the forefront and the garden centre began to flourish. From this single centre, Klondyke now operates 24 garden centres throughout Scotland, Northern England and Wales.

Happy New Year!

Some will be celebrating their successes in 2014 and some may not be and our thoughts go out to the families who will not look back on 2014 as being a great year overall.  We hope they have a better 2015 and a bit of luck is on their side.

For the Grass Clippings Team, we have had a busy past year.  As you may know, we wear many hats in the lawn care and weed control industry and garden retail too.  We have seen tremendous support of our lawn worm cast control product, CastClear, sold out online and via 237 garden retail stockists with new ones joining weekly.