Advice needed to fix lawn problems.............

rookie76

Hi all,

My lawn is currently in bad shape. I have a lot of moss and dead grass, and the grass i do have i weak and yellow. The lawn is about 4/5 years old, but has never been strong.I believe the problem is that the soil is poor and very compact, approx. 6" deep and on underlying rock/shale. The garden doesn't get swampy but the soil is very compacted.

I have a plan to deal with this but I would like any advice so I don't end up wasting my time and money.

Plan is as follows :

- kill moss
- scarify lawn to remove moss and dead grass
- aerate using a plug/core aerator
- spread sharp sand to fill holes and prevent further compaction
- spread a light layer of soil/sand top dressing
- reseed

Got these suggestions from various websites, so not sure how reliable my info is, hence this post.
All advice would be greatly appreciated and also need suggestions on where to get the correct sand and top dressing as I've rang a few local garden centres and only do small bags. I'll probably need a ton or so.

Thanks............................................

norris

how are you planing on aerating it? i need to do this to my small lawn but dont know what is the best device

rookie76

norris wrote: »

how are you planing on aerating it? i need to do this to my small lawn but dont know what is the best device

Gonna hire an aerator from tool hire shop. Think there about the size of a lawnmower. You can do it manually with a fork or a specific aerating tool. Depends on size of area

rookie76

I have never actually done it before. Just relaying what I read somewhere.
Hopefully will get experienced advice from someone on this thread

redser7

That sounds like a good plan to me. Make sure the ground is dried out before you start to work on it or you will make the compaction worse, obviously you'll be walking all over it. Do it methodically so you don't have to keep walking over parts you've completed already.
For the top dressing, get 'sharp' sand from the likes of B&Q or builders providers and mix it with multipurpose compost. Woodies is doing 200 litres for a tenner. 3 or 4 parts compost with one part sand should do fine. Mix it up in a bin or something big. Apply a spadeful per square meter and spread it using a piece of wood, fanning it (if you know what I mean) so the mix falls between the blades of grass and down to the soil. You could mix the seed in with the top dressing and then a further quick handful chucked about here and there for good measure. Make sure to 'lightly' water the seed with a spray hose if there is no rain. Just until it starts to sprout.
Ideally this should be done in the autumn but you'll probably be fine to do it now.

about 3 fity

id spray off moss, rake it out, aerate with a fork. then i'd throw out a bit of fertiliser. also you could mix up a small amount of compost, sand and grass seed and scatter it across the poorly effected areas.

i'd do all this first because the cost would be relatively low compared to your plans and it might solve the issues.

fertiliser depends on exact state of the lawn, yellow and poor growth or just yellow? a garden centre will advise