roll-out lawn

addie

Anyone have any idea how much roll-out lawn costs per square yard / square metre? Would it cost much to have it laid down or should it be easy enough to do the job ourselves- what would that entail? Our garden is 55ft x 16ft of dirt and a few weeds at present...

Dan_B

Price ranges from 3-4 euro a square meter.
It's a doddle to put down, kill the weeds, rotovate the garden, rake and roll it level and then roll out the grass.

It usuall comes in lenghts 1 foot X 9 foot, just leave all the lenghts overlapping by an inch or so as it will shrink a bit.

Water it to saturation every night for the first few weeks.

GreeBo

and stagger your joints (as if you were building a wall)
get some good topsoil/compost and brush in diagonally into all the joints...
water.

addie

Dan_B wrote:

Price ranges from 3-4 euro a square meter.
It's a doddle to put down, kill the weeds, rotovate the garden, rake and roll it level and then roll out the grass.

It usuall comes in lenghts 1 foot X 9 foot, just leave all the lenghts overlapping by an inch or so as it will shrink a bit.

Water it to saturation every night for the first few weeks.

Great, cheers. Two questions:
What does rotovate mean?
And would it be best to keep off the grass in the early days / weeks? Cos I don't know how we could keep our big dalmatian from bounding around the garden for any amount of time!

patrickolee

>What does rotovate mean?
It's something you do with a machine with a rotating blade for breaking up the soil. Like one of these...

http://cgi.ebay.com/howard-rotavator-spares-garden-machinery-rotovator_W0QQitemZ8063244674QQcategoryZ30917QQtcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

GreeBo

also, if you want to do a really good job you should rotovate the entire garden and mix in some quality topsoil/compost.garden sand.
Then Roundup the whole thing and leave for three weeks.
While you are wating for everything to diee you should rake it out level and stone pick as often as you can.
Stones are a bastard for appearing magically.

oulu

Keep an eye on B& Q if rolls are nearly pass their sell by date they sell them of cheap

delly

I'm planning on doing the back garden this weekend with 63 sq metres of turf, but a quick question or two first.

Greebo wrote:

get some good topsoil/compost and brush in diagonally into all the joints

Do you mean put some topsoil on top of where the joints meet, to fill any gaps?

Dan_B wrote:

just leave all the lenghts overlapping by an inch or so as it will shrink a bit

I know if you don't drown it that shrinkage will occur, but by overlapping it, are you not leaving it uneven in case it doesn't shrink? And even if it does, it may not shrink on the whole roll.


I know that you have to stagger the joints, but would it be possible to keep the edges like the picture, or would this compromise the staggering?

Thanks

GreeBo

I think it would lead to problems.
The way your joints end up at the edges is exactly the way you would slit the lawn if you wanted to lift it up i.e. its probably going to lift itself.
You can try it of course, but I think you wouldnt have much more rolls if you just lay it all horizontally(or vertically)

Regarding the topsoil, yeah you would brush it along the joints, jsut to bond them together as they will not be a perfect fit
After a week or two the grass will join up and you will not have mucky lines, dont worry

delly

GreeBo wrote:

I think it would lead to problems.
The way your joints end up at the edges is exactly the way you would slit the lawn if you wanted to lift it up i.e. its probably going to lift itself.
You can try it of course, but I think you wouldnt have much more rolls if you just lay it all horizontally(or vertically)

Regarding the topsoil, yeah you would brush it along the joints, jsut to bond them together as they will not be a perfect fit
After a week or two the grass will join up and you will not have mucky lines, dont worry

Thats grand thanks.

Its taking me about a year to get to this point after putting in some drainage, so Friday will be d-day.