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

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?

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

Teach yourself in the safe use of Pesticides

Who better to train you in the safe use of pesticides than an organisation that is doing what you will be trained to do, each day of the year?

Weed Free are able to provide formal training and assessments for Food and Environment Protection Act Certificates of Competence in the Safe use of Pesticides. Each year, we train many Greenkeepers and Sports Turf Managers and Local Authority Staff.

We were asked multi-times to provide training one to one to small business owners and as a result came up with the the self study pesticide course concept to support our on site training for larger companies and organisations.

You can purchase self-learn NPTC / City & Guilds training modules and other publications here.

Who better to train you in the safe use of pesticides than an organisation that is doing what you will be trained to do, each day of the year?

Weed Free are able to provide formal training and assessments for Food and Environment Protection Act Certificates of Competence in the Safe use of Pesticides. Each year, we train many Greenkeepers and Sports Turf Managers and Local Authority Staff.

We were asked multi-times to provide training one to one to small business owners and as a result came up with the the self study pesticide course concept to support our on site training for larger companies and organisations.

You can purchase self-learn NPTC / City & Guilds training modules and other publications here.

Who better to train you in the safe use of pesticides than an organisation that is doing what you will be trained to do, each day of the year?

Weed Free are able to provide formal training and assessments for Food and Environment Protection Act Certificates of Competence in the Safe use of Pesticides. Each year, we train many Greenkeepers and Sports Turf Managers and Local Authority Staff.

We were asked multi-times to provide training one to one to small business owners and as a result came up with the the self study pesticide course concept to support our on site training for larger companies and organisations.

You can purchase self-learn NPTC / City & Guilds training modules and other publications here.

Who better to train you in the safe use of pesticides than an organisation that is doing what you will be trained to do, each day of the year?

Weed Free are able to provide formal training and assessments for Food and Environment Protection Act Certificates of Competence in the Safe use of Pesticides. Each year, we train many Greenkeepers and Sports Turf Managers and Local Authority Staff.

We were asked multi-times to provide training one to one to small business owners and as a result came up with the the self study pesticide course concept to support our on site training for larger companies and organisations.

You can purchase self-learn NPTC / City & Guilds training modules and other publications here.

Who better to train you in the safe use of pesticides than an organisation that is doing what you will be trained to do, each day of the year?

Weed Free are able to provide formal training and assessments for Food and Environment Protection Act Certificates of Competence in the Safe use of Pesticides. Each year, we train many Greenkeepers and Sports Turf Managers and Local Authority Staff.

We were asked multi-times to provide training one to one to small business owners and as a result came up with the the self study pesticide course concept to support our on site training for larger companies and organisations.

You can purchase self-learn NPTC / City & Guilds training modules and other publications here.

Controlling Red Thread Disease on your Lawn

Red Thread Disease can appear on lawns in the early to late summer, especially seen on lawns of low fertility, especially Nitrogen. If the summer months are humid and moist there will be an incredible outbreak of this disease on UK lawns.

Identification:

This disease is now thought to be a combination or complex of two fungal species:

a) L.fuciformis – Red Thread – where the red needles are present
b) L.fuciformis – Pink Patch – where the pink mycelium is present.

This disease is now thought to be a combination or complex of two fungal species:

a) L.fuciformis – Red Thread – where the red needles are present
b) L.fuciformis – Pink Patch – where the pink mycelium is present.

June Lawn Care Tips

May has been a really dry month with only 0.8mm of rain in the month in the South East at least. April was down a bit on rainfall with only 37.60 mm in the month.

We are officially in a drought and the lawns are really suffering now with the high natural daily water loss /deficit that only a good days of regular rainfall will resolve.

 

Look for the Lawn Dry Patch Dark Halo

Some rain is forecast today, but the relentless wind and sunshine is really drying out the lawns quickly.

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.

How and When to water your Lawns

When and how much water should you give your lawn during the prevailing hot weather when the thermometer is tipping almost 27.7 degrees?

We are receiving a lot of calls about the very same subject, mostly about newly renovated lawns with seed or turf.

Should you water your lawns or not when it is this hot?  Turf grasses are tough old things and so long as you have healthy and desirable turf grasses in your lawns then they should be capable of coping with the extremes of drought.

How to Control Weed Grasses in your Lawn

We often get asked by lawn owners the best remedy of controlling weed grasses in lawns. Just because it is green, it does not mean that it is a grass or grasses you want in your green sward.

A lawn should have nothing in it except good healthy desirable turf grasses but this is often not the case. Weed grasses will react violently to changes in climatic conditions such as drought or fertilisation or selective weed control or a change in soil moisture.

Clumps of weed grasses of which there could be many are very unsightly, and more often than not, the weed grasses will colonise into large clumps across a lawn.

We often get asked by lawn owners the best remedy of controlling weed grasses in lawns. Just because it is green, it does not mean that it is a grass or grasses you want in your green sward.

A lawn should have nothing in it except good healthy desirable turf grasses but this is often not the case. Weed grasses will react violently to changes in climatic conditions such as drought or fertilisation or selective weed control or a change in soil moisture.

Clumps of weed grasses of which there could be many are very unsightly, and more often than not, the weed grasses will colonise into large clumps across a lawn.

Controlling Japanese Knotweed in your Garden

When you are involved with weed control, you will always get asked about a wide range of weeds that can appear in a garden, even though your specialist knowledge is really lawn weeds.

Being the helpful sort, we like to keep you up to date with all weed related matters and this technical post is about controlling Japanese Knotweed and provides some up to date news about this invasive weed.

The majority of homeowners instantly panic about JNW.  It is truly not hard to kill if you use a professional and licensed treatment company and don't be lured into expensive eradication concepts and programmes.  The initial treatment will mostly control it and the second treatment can pick up on any regrowth the next year or after six months after the first treatment.  The more you have, the more complicated eradication may become but small clumps are easily and quickly dealt with.

 

 

When you are involved with weed control, you will always get asked about a wide range of weeds that can appear in a garden, even though your specialist knowledge is really lawn weeds.

Being the helpful sort, we like to keep you up to date with all weed related matters and this technical post is about controlling Japanese Knotweed and provides some up to date news about this invasive weed.

The majority of homeowners instantly panic about JNW.  It is truly not hard to kill if you use a professional and licensed treatment company and don't be lured into expensive eradication concepts and programmes.  The initial treatment will mostly control it and the second treatment can pick up on any regrowth the next year or after six months after the first treatment.  The more you have, the more complicated eradication may become but small clumps are easily and quickly dealt with.

Lawn Care Tips for beating the Drought

With only 16.2mm of rainfall received in April to date, we are very much in a drought and the 15.6mm of rain over the past weekend was really useful but with warm sunny and windy weather a lot of the rain benefit is quickly reducing.

The natural evaporation rate per hour today is 6mm currently so trying to water a lawn to get some vital green colour back is a bit of a losing battle as you would need to apply 6mm of water each daylight hour to keep abreast of the natural water loss from the lawns surface and turf grass plants.  It is easy to see that you will be in a water deficit in no time!

With only 16.2mm of rainfall received in April to date, we are very much in a drought and the 15.6mm of rain over the past weekend was really useful but with warm sunny and windy weather a lot of the rain benefit is quickly reducing.

The natural evaporation rate per hour today is 6mm currently so trying to water a lawn to get some vital green colour back is a bit of a losing battle as you would need to apply 6mm of water each daylight hour to keep abreast of the natural water loss from the lawns surface and turf grass plants.  It is easy to see that you will be in a water deficit in no time!

With only 16.2mm of rainfall received in April to date, we are very much in a drought and the 15.6mm of rain over the past weekend was really useful but with warm sunny and windy weather a lot of the rain benefit is quickly reducing.

The natural evaporation rate per hour today is 6mm currently so trying to water a lawn to get some vital green colour back is a bit of a losing battle as you would need to apply 6mm of water each daylight hour to keep abreast of the natural water loss from the lawns surface and turf grass plants.  It is easy to see that you will be in a water deficit in no time!

The Lawn Shop is Open during COVID Restrictions

The Team at the Lawn Shop have had a busy few weeks since the official COVID -19 restrictions have been in place.

Thankfully, we did have plentiful stock of lawn treatment products ahead of the usual spring-time purchasing rush and the Easter Holidays.

Our Couriers have done a sterling job at getting orders out to lawn owners promptly, especially with the fine weather of the past few weeks.

Spring Lawn Care Tips

We kissed the backside of the rather wet Winter and the wettest February on record for sure and then got ourselves into a COVID-19 lockdown just as the weather improved and the sun came out!

With only 0.6mm of rain in 26 days to date since 19th March, we are heading towards on the driest April on record. The natural daily water loss from lawns is very high, up to 6mm in any one single warm & sunny daylight hour.

If you have not yet mown your lawn, now is the time to get the mower out of the shed and give the lawns their first mow of the season.  Just take the top off the turf grasses, so no more than 25% of the total growth.  Little and often is the key as after all we have had what we call a late spring in the garden.

Once mown, take a long hard look at the surface vegetation, which will include all or some of the following - desirable, turf grasses, weed grasses, weeds, moss and worm casts.

Aeration - A Beginners Guide

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.