The Great Garden Project - Step 1 - sow the lawn

damoz

Ok. So in the new house a few weeks now. The grass (or what the builders left behind as a lawn) is starting to grow like wild fire, but other than that its a blank canvass.

Garden area is 25ft by 25ft so not too big. I want to have an area for seating/BBQ, some lawn, a shed and hide the oil tank. So i am going to be on here from time to time seeking your combined expertise and advice.

So to get the ball rolling :

Its end of April - is it too late now to sow a lawn. Would i be better to wait until autumn. I have alot of weeds so the plan would be :
1. spray the whole area in Roundup
2. Wait 4 weeks until all is dead.
3. Create the lawn area (also make the patio area)
4. Rotivate, dig, rake.
5. Sow lawn (so this would bring me into Late May / June

So am i too late, and would i be better to do all the ground work and leave sowing until late august?

GreeBo

The later you leave it to sow the more diligent you have to be with your watering.
You CANNOT let the seeds dry out at all or they will die.
Other than that you can sow when you want (but not much will happen in winter )

Unless you have crazy jungle weeds or a terribly uneven surface (some unevenness is nice, dead flat is a bet too fake for me) I wouldnt bother rotovating/roundup.

Drop a feed/weed solution down and give it a week or so then rake up the dead stuff, break up and bare ground a bit, seed and cover with sand/topsoil mix
Keep it damp (might mean sprinkling every day)

then cut when the new stuff is about 2-3 inches high.
Dont scalp it, you jsut help the weeds to grow.
The best long term weed killer is healthy growing grass.

squire1

I wouldn't bother with roundup either. Just cut the weeds/grass as low as you can with a mower or strimmer and rake out the roots when you turn over the soil. It'll save you having to wait 4 weeks for the weeds to die and they will have to be raked out anyway.

Remember to put a few extra handfulls of seed out for the birds.

As Greebo says, just keep the ground moist if you sow during a dry spell. Not too wet or your seeds will float away

10-10-20

GreeBo wrote:

Drop a feed/weed solution down and give it a week or so then rake up the dead stuff,

Some of those have a seed germination inhibitor which will work against your new seeds. So be careful.

break up and bare ground a bit, seed and cover with sand/topsoil mix

Don't forget this - I didn't add sand to my top-soil mix and the result is that the ground is hard.

Irish Gardener

Preparing and sowing a lawn from grass seed in Ireland, an overview here.....
http://www.gardenplansireland.com/forum/about287.html

paulocon

Early autumn is the best time but you can also sow in April..

Have a look at How To Sow A Lawn for some tips

JackieO

I too have a very poor quality lawn left behind by the builders. This is my second year in the house and the lawn does not appear to be getting any better. The grass is growing as though it were on speed - owing to all the tlc I gave it last summer I imagine. However, there are so many bumps and lumps in the garden I am in danger of spraining an ankle.

I was thinking of just digging up the whole thing and starting again with a new layer of top soil?

Would appreciate any comments.

looksee

Unless you had very caring builders the area that has a 'lawn' on will be made up of patches of totally packed and compressed ground that machines have been on, lightly covered with 'topsoil'. A little investigation (ie digging) will produce astonishing quantities of half blocks, bricks, roof tiles, random lumps of concrete, builders' lunch bags, lengths of reinforcing metal, bits of plastic pipe, lengths of timber, chunks of insulating, bits of cable - in fact samples of whatever goes into building a house. Sooner or later you are going to have to dig it all out.

GreeBo

looksee wrote:

Sooner or later you are going to have to dig it all out.

I disagree actually
my garden has the usual builder crap buried beneath it and the grass grows just fine.
You just need to look after your lawn if you want it to look nice.

Too many people cut it once a month and chop it right down until its yellow and dead.
This promotes weeds and you end up with a crappy looking garden.

Just my opinion.

Xennon

Im with GreeBo on this... how oven do you see a chopped to death lawn next to a lush field of grass??
give the grass a chance to grow and it will.

dmck

sorry for jumping in here, but why do you need to wait 4 weeks for roundup to work? i thought it worked within 2 weeks, I was planning on spraying roundup tonight and rotavating the garden in 2 weeks in preparation for a new roll out lawn, have I got this wrong?

GreeBo

you need to let the roundup "go away" otherwise it will kill your grass!

towbar

Roundup wont affect the seed. Roundup only acts on growing plants. In fact you could spray roundup the day before you sowed if there was any green showing. You leave it 4 weeks so the roundup gets a chance to work into the roots of all the weeds. It will kill most weeds within 2 weeks but the extra 2 gives it a chance to get a more thorough kill with the harder to kill weeds.

KILRB

Be careful, I sprayed round up and waited 6 weeks. It killed everything alright but by the 5th week new clover was starting to grow and spread very rapidly.

GreeBo

towbar wrote:

Roundup wont affect the seed. Roundup only acts on growing plants. In fact you could spray roundup the day before you sowed if there was any green showing.

Any time I have sowed some seed (har har!) it has germinated and started to grow within a week, why wouldnt the roundup kill this then?

towbar

Its neutralized by the clay like paraquat. Take an area with weeds dig small patch spray the whole lot with roundup after 3-4 weeks weeds will be dead but the dug patch will be green with new weeds.