Gardening thread 2020

A garden fork will do the trick for aerating the lawn. Go in about 3" to 4" and gently lift the turf a touch.
Move along about 4" forward, and repeat.
Any holes can be filled with lawn sand if you want - that will keep the holes filled and allow water to drain through down into the turf.
Try it, it is easier than those daft boot things.
 


Butcher's Coat said:
A garden fork will do the trick for aerating the lawn. Go in about 3" to 4" and gently lift the turf a touch.
Move along about 4" forward, and repeat.
Any holes can be filled with lawn sand if you want - that will keep the holes filled and allow water to drain through down into the turf.
Try it, it is easier than those daft boot things.
Click to expand...
Thanks, really appreciate it. A quick forking sounds much easier!
 
Butcher's Coat said:
A garden fork will do the trick for aerating the lawn. Go in about 3" to 4" and gently lift the turf a touch.
Move along about 4" forward, and repeat.
Any holes can be filled with lawn sand if you want - that will keep the holes filled and allow water to drain through down into the turf.
Try it, it is easier than those daft boot things.
Click to expand...

Mrs C is having palpitations over this because I’ve just told her my plan following reading a thread on the SMB.

Her fear mainly stems from me braying loads of gear on the lawn last year and just hoping for the best. It’s recovered canny well from that but it definitely needs some more care and attention.

I’ve had a poke round on YouTube as well so I think I know what I’m doing but I’m tempted to leave it till the back end of the summer, just in case it dies warm up significantly, I need a lawn rake as well.
 
Charlestonian said:
Mrs C is having palpitations over this because I’ve just told her my plan following reading a thread on the SMB.

Her fear mainly stems from me braying loads of gear on the lawn last year and just hoping for the best. It’s recovered canny well from that but it definitely needs some more care and attention.

I’ve had a poke round on YouTube as well so I think I know what I’m doing but I’m tempted to leave it till the back end of the summer, just in case it dies warm up significantly, I need a lawn rake as well.
Click to expand...
Raking by hand is back breaking.

Buy/rent a scarifier. It will pull loads of crap out of the lawn but it will recover quickly.
 
janiep said:
Update: the horrible cypress leylandii hedge which we inherited and which ran the length of the front garden parallel with the house has GONE. The difference is unbelievable. We now look out onto a lovely embankment on the other side of the path (which in turn is the other side of our front garden, also parallel to the front of the house). This embankment is brim with wild flowers - dandelions, bluebells coming, brambles (all common as muck native species but this is what I want and it's lovely to look at). This view was previously blocked by the hedge. The front garden feels twice as big. Light floods into it and into our west-facing front room. We have a new front border to plant, which is my weekend task. My plan for this border, as part of the rewilding project, is to chuck wildflower seeds in it. Because the leylandii was there, the soil condition is poor which is what native wildflower species love. Mr P has done a fine job sieving it all to a fine tilth. Our neighbours also have a leylandii at the front of their garden (so that it looked like one solid hedge running across both gardens) - we took ours down only after consulting with them, and they were OK with it. They now love ours so much they're going to get theirs done as well and we're discussing plans for how to guerilla garden the embankment. We don't own this, but nobody knows who does. Nobody comes down the little path which runs between our front gardens and the embankment apart from us and the postie, so we've got a pretty free hand with the embankment. My idea is blackberries and sloes (both native species) to have a good, private supply for jam and gin. But we'll see what they say.

We were going to replant where the leylandii was with a native species hedge - hawthorn, dog rose, field maple etc - but will give it this year at least to think about this before deciding.

Who would build an eight foot high, three foot wide brick wall and paint it green on their front boundary? No one. Leylandii are the devil's work.
VEG NEWS. In the teeny tiny growhouse we have sweetcorn, spring broc and caulis all sprouting nicely. The aubergines and tomatoes are sluggish and yet to show. The neighbour gave me a tray of young lettuces yesterday. We are eating the spring brocc I planted last year (MOUNTAINS of it) and also I let my brussels sprouts run over the winter because in the spring they always burst into stalks with lots of leaves and flower heads just like spring brocc - all edible, all delicious.
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We had massive Laylandii going right across the back of our garden when we moved in, but the neighbours out the back had loads of trees too. At the time we had an escape artist dog who disappeared one day and he had found the fence the other side of these thick trees had fallen to bits so he could just push his way through, get into the gardens at the back, round the side of the house and go exploring. (We got him back!). They had planted loads only 1m apart but let them grow to 12-15ft high. The ground up that end was bone dry as they sucked all moisture out the soil. Not being able to let the dog out, it became a massive job to cut the lot of them down, dig all the roots out and then put a new fence up.

Like you saw, the difference is amazing. I made my veg patch up there, which would never have survived with the trees there and with room to grow some of the neighbours trees now overhang and look far more attractive. Two of those are plum trees which have just started to ripen. I ate the first one just last night while doing the watering up there. Because there were trees the other side of the boundary anyway, it didn't leave our garden any more overlooked. It was one of the many strange things the previous people had done that we have spent the time undoing.
 
PTR said:
A quick forking sounds much easier!
Click to expand...

Boy was I wrong.

Just did a 3x3 patch as a test. Getting the fork in involved me standing on the the damn thing and rocking it side-to-side. Then getting it back out has blistered both my hands.
I hope it bloody works - although I guess it'll be a good month before we see.

Might have to do it next time when its been absolutely pissing down. Maybe towards October time.
 
PTR said:
Boy was I wrong.

Just did a 3x3 patch as a test. Getting the fork in involved me standing on the the damn thing and rocking it side-to-side. Then getting it back out has blistered both my hands.
I hope it bloody works - although I guess it'll be a good month before we see.

Might have to do it next time when its been absolutely pissing down. Maybe towards October time.
Click to expand...
Imagine trying with those daft boot things??
Yes, Deffo wait until the ground is wetter.
Stick with it marra.
 
Butcher's Coat said:
Imagine trying with those daft boot things??
Yes, Deffo wait until the ground is wetter.
Stick with it marra.
Click to expand...
I did get the shoes to work a bit last time - its miles less effort, but only 3" and obviously tiny holes. But after about 2 mins, they start to slip off no matter how tight I put them on.

I think the ground is rock hard - it could well be part of the issue.

Although I've found the root cause of one yellow patch - there's a massive stone (possibly half a brick) about 3" under the soil. Need to dig that up later on.

Wish you could get a lightweight hollow tining machine like my scarifier. Really don't want to run one of the massive ones over my garden, its too twisty turny and not worth £100 to rent it (or £250 to get someone else to do it)
 
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Slatz63 said:
Raking by hand is back breaking.

Buy/rent a scarifier. It will pull loads of crap out of the lawn but it will recover quickly.
Click to expand...

Is that the same thing as a rotavator or different? Can I go wrong in what I’m renting here? I’m keen to get this right but I haven’t got the first idea what I’m doing!
 
Charlestonian said:
Is that the same thing as a rotavator or different? Can I go wrong in what I’m renting here? I’m keen to get this right but I haven’t got the first idea what I’m doing!
Click to expand...
Totally different things, an electric/petrol scarifier will just remove your thatch etc. Well worth hiring one as the amount of dead grass it took out my lawn was unbelievable, a bit topsoil and seed mixed afterward and it’s never looked so good. A rotavator will be well over the top unless your starting from scratch to create a new lawn, then it’ll need levelled etc before applying seed etc.
 
gasman said:
Totally different things, an electric/petrol scarifier will just remove your thatch etc. Well worth hiring one as the amount of dead grass it took out my lawn was unbelievable, a bit topsoil and seed mixed afterward and it’s never looked so good. A rotavator will be well over the top unless your starting from scratch to create a new lawn, then it’ll need levelled etc before applying seed etc.
Click to expand...

Cracking that, I’ll have to get one hired, probably week after next, cheers.
 
PTR said:
Anyone an expert on grass / lawns?

My grass is all limp (wahey), rather than the individual blade pointing up to the sky, they're all flattened down.
Gave it a dose of dissolveable fertiliser and a low dose of iron (both from the lawnsmith) a few days ago, but no improvement so far
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I gave mine a top dressing of soil, mainly to flatten some bumps out. It's made a big difference to how green and lush my lawn is.
 
pillars of hercules said:
I gave mine a top dressing of soil, mainly to flatten some bumps out. It's made a big difference to how green and lush my lawn is.
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That's on the list. There's a 2m wide depression along the garden that needs levelling, and all the new land isn't completely flat (I did my best, but it was hard work!). So yeah, a 50/50 sand/topsoil top dressing to level the whole thing off is defintely needed.
Need to find a company who can do it though - and do it properly, as the last gardeners I had in were useless and I had to do it myself once they went.
Charlestonian said:
Is that the same thing as a rotavator or different? Can I go wrong in what I’m renting here? I’m keen to get this right but I haven’t got the first idea what I’m doing!
Click to expand...
Rotavator will completely "plough" a field - turning over soil about 10" down. That's what I used to break up all the ground (that I bought from the council) so that I could level it off properly.
You need a scarifier if you just want to remove thatch and moss. If moss, do your moss treatment after you scarify, not before. And do it in September, not now - it won't be able to recover in summer.
 
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PTR said:
That's on the list. There's a 2m wide depression along the garden that needs levelling, and all the new land isn't completely flat (I did my best, but it was hard work!). So yeah, a 50/50 sand/topsoil top dressing to level the whole thing off is defintely needed.
Need to find a company who can do it though - and do it properly, as the last gardeners I had in were useless and I had to do it myself once they went.

Rotavator will completely "plough" a field - turning over soil about 10" down. That's what I used to break up all the ground (that I bought from the council) so that I could level it off properly.
You need a scarifier if you just want to remove thatch and moss. If moss, do your moss treatment after you scarify, not before. And do it in September, not now - it won't be able to recover in summer.
Click to expand...
How big is your lawn?
 
pillars of hercules said:
Probably easier to do it yourself?
Click to expand...
That's what I've done twice now so far. Once when reclaiming the old borders and then once again with the new land. I've got no interest in doing it again! I want a professional to come and do a "perfect" job of it.
.
Well, the freshly forked patch of lawn is at least getting a good watering today.
I guess it'll be interesting to see if water pools in the holes. My guess it that it will, and that this is the problem!
 
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