If our lawn care tips are not enough to rescue your garden don’t give up hope; there will be a solution to your garden problems, even if this does mean taking the drastic step of digging up and starting again. Heavy use over the summer and intensive lawn mower use can leave even the healthiest lawn in a sorry state.
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Areas used as a football goal are especially prone to baldness and require reseeding. Sometimes it is easier to reseed the entire lawn if there is more than 50% of the total area that needs attention.
Some soils have an imbalance in Ph levels, and if you are going to the effort of aerating, fertilising and reseeding then it is best to check the levels in your soil before you start, otherwise you could find that all your hard work comes to nothing. Soil testing kits are relatively cheap from most large garden centres, and the chemicals you may need to address the imbalances can also be purchased there.
Something that all lawns can benefit from is scarifying. This process removes thatched grasses and moss from the lawn surface allowing the grass beneath a chance to grow. Sometimes this alone will invigorate your lawn enough that reseeding might only be a minimal job, but there is no point in reseeding a patch of thatched lawn as it will not take. Purpose built scarifiers are available, but for smaller areas a good, spring-tined rake will do the job. Once the moss and thatch are removed they should be deposited on the compost heap, and definitely not left near the lawn where moss can grow and spread again. Clearing dead leaves from the surface throughout the autumn also helps your grass get the benefit of any sunlight.
The best time to prepare and seed a lawn is in the autumn; the cooler and wetter weather makes the ground more workable and the heat retained in the earth from the summer period will help new grass seeds to germinate much better than in the cold, wet ground of spring. Because the grass won’t be under attack from over-zealous lawn mower use during this period it also gives the seed a chance to take. Check your chosen grass seed for the best time to sow; it will usually be during the autumn period, but some varieties do not take well to late sowing.
If you need to completely reseed small areas, set the lawn mower blades very low over these areas to help with preparing the underlying soil. The soil needs to be aerated to turn over the soil, providing a good area of contact for the seed. Hiring a landscaper who has the right equipment is the easiest way to do this, although for very large areas it is more cost effective to buy the equipment yourself. There are attachments for ride on lawn mowers that turn over and aerate the ground, as well as cheaper manual equipment that will do the same job at a slower pace.
When over-seeding your lawn, which is the easiest option for thickening a sparse lawn or crowding out unwelcome weeds and grasses, make sure you mow these areas with the lawn mower blades set to the highest setting. This will trim back enough growth to let the sun in, but leave enough grass to protect the sprouting seeds. If you are fertilising the lawn then the lawn mower should also be set as high as possible to allow the grass blades as much opportunity as possible to photosynthesise and draw in the fertiliser. Make sure that the fertiliser you use is designed for autumn use, as the chemicals in spring-use fertiliser are no help in an autumnal climate.
With these steps, your lawn will be thriving by spring-time and ready for another season of summer fun.