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Q. On holiday in Thailand, I noticed that the hotel lawn wasn't really like grass at all but a sort of plant - wide dwarf leaves, no flowers as far as I could see and very tough to walk on. Is there an equivalent no-maintenance UK option that my kids could run around on? A. The grass you saw was probably "Bermuda Grass" a tough tropical plant that is the best that can be managed outside of the temperate regions without a lot of care. It might appear to be tough, but isn't, it can't really take a lot of traffic. We had a similar grass in Mombasa, Kenya, when I lived there, it's also not very pleasant to touch and doesn't form the best play surface. Standard temperate grasses are far better here, they grow more quickly with less care, are softer and more pleasant to touch and rejuvenate better after cutting and wear.If anything, people who live in the tropics would far rather be able to grow the temperate type grasses that we have here. If you are looking for a hard-wearing grass, then select one with rye-grass, you will sacrifice fineness in the process and need to have a rotary mower to deal with the stalks that stick up persistently when you mow it, but it's the best bet in the long run. Q. I had some new turf laid down a few months ago. It went a little brown when I mowed the lawn. I bought some grass repair which included some fertiliser and now there are big patches where the grass has gone brown and even in places totally disappeared (I think the fertiliser burned the new turf ?) I was wondering if you could advise what the best thing to do is. A. It's difficult to tell without seeing the area directly. I think it is unlikely that it would be the fertiliser - assuming you followed the instructions. The only way a fertiliser would have such a dramatic effect is if you directly applied a soluble fertiliser, i.e. as a solid without diluting, or applied the correct type in greatly increased and patchy quantities (hmm.... maybe not so unlikely?)Do you have a dog? Female dogs can cause die-back in the way you suggest ( they do big wees all in one place unlike males who spread it around a bit more) Try lifting the turf where it has died and looking underneath, any clues? I've dug a few cement bags up from dead turf patches in the past and a colleague once retrieved a whole functional wheelbarrow! My guess is that there's some other cause that you need to determine before re-seeding or re-turfing the patches. Q. We have a female Golden Retriever killing our grass. We have brown dead spots where she urinates on our newly sodded (turfed) lawn. Is there anything we can use to neutralize the urine on these spots so the grass doesn't die? She tends to go in the same location. We have tried to teach her to go on the bark in the surrounding beds, but this may just lead to problems with the ground covers etc which we planted there. We are looking for a solution. What options do we have? We love the yard and the dog. We have a small village lot, not a lot of options for space. (i.e.: No room for a separate dog run). A. This is a fairly common problem with female dogs of large breeds. Bitches tend to deposit all of their urine in one place, hence the die-back of the grass. It's not such a problem with males as they spread it around a lot more and the smaller quantities in any one place are not usually a problem. There is no simple solution and water is the best way of neutralizing the urine. The real problem is being around when the dog urinates and seeing where she has done it, if you can do this, then keep a hose handy and spray the area, alternatively a bucket of water will do the same job. Long term, you could try keeping an area as the "dog toilet", say put bark chips down and try to train your dog to use that area, though this is not as easy with dogs as with cats who take to a specific toilet area better. This tends to be a summer problem as in the winter, the soil and grass are already wet (though I don't what your climate is like), so the urine is more diluted. You can repair damaged areas by replacing the top layer of soil, 1-2" and re-seeding or replace with new turf.
Q. I have scorched my lawn. I believe I overdosed on the lawn feed. I applied more lawn feed in bottom half than the top half of the lawn. There are more brown patches in the one half of the lawn than the other half. I also used the same lawn feed back in middle April. After a while the grass looked green and beautiful. Nine weeks later in June, I thought it would be a good idea to feed the lawn again. What can I do now. A. Spring and autumn are the best times to feed your lawn, a summer feed is not usually necessary - at least you know for next year!What can you do about it? Not an awful lot I'm afraid. I'd drench the affected areas with water to dissolve and wash away the feed that's sitting there. I mean a really good soaking - a bucket per square foot - so it takes it down deeper into the soil. Also, set your lawn mower a bit higher so that the grass gets a better chance to recover without any extra stresses. "Do I need to re-seed etc or will the grass grow back." I'd leave it for a while and see how it goes, re-seed in the autumn, about mid September if you need to. Any seed sown before then won't take very well at all and it'll give longer for the excess fertiliser to wash away, otherwise the seed will just germinate and then promptly die. Q. Can I sow grass seed straight onto peat? My 40 tons of soil was not mixed with my 40 tons of peat as planned and I now have a good deep planting area of soil and a large shallow lawn area of peat. The expense and delay of getting this spread out added to the expense and delay of buying and delivering it in the first place precludes me from digging it up again and mixing it. Would a shallow dressing of soil be necessary (or indeed a satisfactory solution at all)? A. Not sure I understand the situation. You could sow seed into peat and it would probably germinate, but then would suffer from lack of nutrients and attract moss - being peat and so acidic. You need to mix the peat with the soil whether it be what you have brought in or what is already there. The easiest way (if possible) is to get a large rotavator and use it to mix the two. It may be a major effort to mix the peat, but in the long run - decades? is certainly worth the extra. Q. I have some grass seed to put on my lawn which is a bit bare and would like advice on preparation and maintenance whilst it grows. A. It's always a difficult one when the grass is a "bit bare", it's difficult to thicken up and improve what's already there, often being easier to start again from scratch. There are two steps to take, first of all improve conditions for the existing grass, it's not thin and sparse for nothing, and then add to it. If you don't address underlying problems, then it will revert to how it was beforehand, so you may need to aerate with a hollow-tine aerator or fork, apply a top-dressing, remove thatch, feed, remove weeds etc. Adding grass seed while retaining existing grass is a bit hit and miss and dependent largely on what the weather is like after seeding. Rake the surface with an ordinary garden rake to loosen the soil, preferably not disturbing existing grass too much, then sow the seed on top, rake again to cover as much of it as you can and water it. Keep off it completely until it begins to sprout, watering where necessary, when it starts to show through don't mow it as the rest of the lawn until it has thickened up. This is a good time to apply a general lawn feed which will also encourage the existing grass. It's a bit of a hit and miss process, and you may need to repeat it more than once, but you should get there with patience. Q. How to remove patches of rye grass in newly-laid turf lawn? (Mainly ryegrass free). A. It's not going to be easy as it sounds like the rye grass was in the turf when it arrived. Finer grasses respond better to feeding and cope better with regular close mowing. So give your lawn monthly feeds through the summer and mow two or three times a week from May to September at 1/4" to 3/8". This regimen will eventually eradicate the rye grasses. An easier solution is to put up with the rye grass and get a rotary mower to cut down the resulting stalks. It depends on the uses your lawn will get, rye grass is tough and resistant to wear and tear, finer delicate grasses aren't but look far better. Q. My father has accidentally sprayed his grass with path weedkiller and the grass has totally died. Is it safe to re-sow the grass seed on top of the old grass or will the weedkiller be in the soil, would it be safer to dig the area over and restart the lawn from scratch? A. Not an easy one. Path weedkiller is so designated because the weedkiller sits in the soil and continues to have an effect for months afterwards - hence it is very good for use on paths. Sowing new seed would be a waste of time and digging the soil over would dilute the problem but not make it go away. It is just a question of time, the weedkiller will be washed away and will break down within a period of 3-6 months when a new lawn can be sown. The only immediate answer would be to remove all the soil to a depth of 6" or so, replace it and then sow the new grass seed or lay turf. Your best bet is to wait and see when new weeds or grass start to grow through the soil before sowing any grass seed. You can speed the process up a bit by watering during dry weather and doing a few rain dances for luck. A. Should you worry? - no. Grass seed can be fairly slow to germinate even at warm times of the year. The only problem with sowing so late in the year is that there's longer for the birds to get at it before it starts to grow, but it's more likely to be ok than not. Q. Sections of my lawn has no grass but only weeds. How can get rid of these and have a decent lawn like my neighbours. Do I have to dig the weeds leaving a bald patch or is there something else I can do? A. If you remove the weeds by digging or weedkilling you will have bald patches. If these are small, say 6" diameter or less the grass will close over fairly quickly, larger than this and a small amount of grass seed may be needed to speed the process. At this time of year feeding the lawn immediately afterwards will stimulate the growth considerably, use a proprietary lawn feed. |
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