Cutting the Grass



Stormo said:
Scarifier came with a raking took where you take off the scarifying blades and replace it with rakers.
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Aye, that's what Tom's has. I wish I'd gone ower n asked him for a gan now.
PTR said:
It'll be miles less this year, as you ripped a decade's worth of thatch out last year.
Mind, you don't HAVE to scarify if there's no need.
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It's the clovery weedy thing that's annoying. The thatch isn't all that bad except round the edges. The soil must be crap like.
 
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PTR said:
It'll be miles less this year, as you ripped a decade's worth of thatch out last year.
Mind, you don't HAVE to scarify if there's no need.
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Yeah I think, after using the scarifier and the raker, I’ll probably use the raker more. Once I’ve scarified the lawns I would imagine I’d get away with it for a couple of years. Whereas raking the moss out will be a twice yearly job.
 
Stormo said:
Yeah I think, after using the scarifier and the raker, I’ll probably use the raker more. Once I’ve scarified the lawns I would imagine I’d get away with it for a couple of years. Whereas raking the moss out will be a twice yearly job.
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Its so confusing, as the terms the pro's use, and the terms on the DIY kit don't match up.

Like you say, you have 2 cassettes that rotate - one with loads of sprung tines, which acts like a super-rake. That's just raking really. But most of us would call it scarifying. Home machines seem to call this aerating!!
But scarifying to the pro's is the steel blades that just cut through the surface. On our home machines, that's sometimes called scarifying, and my home machine is calling this verticutting sometimes in the manual.

I actually AM verticutting with my scarifying blades. They're 3x too far apart to really do this, so I'm only moving 1/3 along each time.

Its all a bit confusing really!
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Well, I figured out why my water butts hadn't filled up at all given the rain last night.
The diverter valve thing was absolutely full of sycamore tree seeds, most had germinated too. It was a blockage half the size of a house brick!

I really hate those trees out the back. They're evil. Strongly suspect their roots going into my garden too, and rob all the moisture and nutrients from the soil
 
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First bit of rain for about a fortnight here today. I'll let that do it's thing give it a cut when it dries up then put some more seaweed stuff down the back end of the week
 
socrates said:
if its a new build and youre the first owners - if its been down a while and had no attention chances are its in poor condition.

Once turfed a new lawn needs a sprinkler on it for at least an hour a day until its rooted, around a fortnight. To check if its rooted, after a week to 10 days go to the corner of the lawn and gently lift the turf. If it wont lift its rooted. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WALK ON IT UNTIL ITS ROOTED.

I had a 50m2 lawn laid 2 yrs ago for around £300, worth every penny. The preparation and turf quality was spot on.
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How the fuck is he going to get close enough to lift up a corner without his feet being on the lawn?
 
had all the thatch scarified out of my lawns yesterday. knew rain was forcast for today so at the first raindrops appearing I was out with the spreader and dropped a load of feed and grass seed mix on it. Its pissed down ever since.

Next lawn job is to get a garden line on the borders, half moon edging tool, and make some clean edges.

That'll wait a couple of days because I had over 800 plug plants delivered today for baskets, tubs and borders that need potting on.
Sneech said:
How the fuck is he going to get close enough to lift up a corner without his feet being on the lawn?
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:lol: :lol: nee idea but he'll have no bother stamping it down once its rotovated.
 
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I always thought you had to deliberately stand on new turf to get contact with the soil underneath.
Could be wrong.
 
Being happy about the rain as it helps grass grow, when we've only just been allowed out the house after a year and on the back of a long, cold and wet winter.

What have we become? :(
 
Seed i put down mixed with top soil in patches is taking forever to come through. Not sure if its due to being relatively chilly. Got a few shoots coming up but they look reddish. Sure they will turn green
 
BlackOps said:
Seed i put down mixed with top soil in patches is taking forever to come through. Not sure if its due to being relatively chilly. Got a few shoots coming up but they look reddish. Sure they will turn green
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Had some put down last Thursday and it hasn’t appeared yet :neutral:
 
BlackOps said:
Seed i put down mixed with top soil in patches is taking forever to come through. Not sure if its due to being relatively chilly. Got a few shoots coming up but they look reddish. Sure they will turn green
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Absolutely not one jot of what I put down has done a single thing. Yeah, its been tool cold every night. Fescue needs soil temps to remain above 10C (rye is a bit lower, and that's in most seed mixes, so quite possibly why you're having some joy?), and when the air is 0-4C every night, its just not happening, even if its been quite sunny during the days.
Its a right fuck on.

Had to buy another bag of seed to try again this weekend - but then I check the weather, and its cool nights for the first full week of May too. FML !
 

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