Lawn Care TipsFor A Great Looking Lawn

The Autumn Lawn Workout

When you stop to think, grass gets a pretty rough time of it. A lawn is made up of thousands of individual grass plants growing very close together. To keep a lawn looking great it needs a lot of care and attention, all year round. As we see it, there’s two solutions to keeping a great looking lawn in your garden: lay an ever-green artificial lawn that is totally maintenance free, or put forth the effort to look after the grass.

There is a video that gives some samples of what a professionally laid artificial lawn can look like over at http://www.artificialgrassturfsolutions.co.uk/, plus we have some lawn maintenance tips below.

They stay in the same place for many years, where they are trodden on and regularly beheaded, and you cannot get at the soil in between them, as you can between flowers Tn a bed, to improve things by cultivating and mulching. Trampling feet compress the soil, and old dead grass stems and debris left by the mower accumulate to form a springy underlay below the layer of live, green grass. Both conditions make it increasingly difficult for the grass to grow well, and this is when moss gets in and the lawn starts looking patchy. Small wonder that, eventually, even this most good-natured of plants starts to run out of steam. In time the lawn needs more than just annual feeding and mowing to keep it in good condition. It needs a good overhaul.

The solution is to treat it to a special program of care in autumn designed to put it back in shape for the start of the next season. Lawns that get only occasional use may go for several years between treatments. But those which are heavily used, such as small lawns that have a family playing on them every weekend throughout summer, need perking up every autumn to keep them dense, green and lush. Enthusiasts who want a perfect lawn will usually give it the full treatment every year to keep it in peak condition. Allocate a full day in early or mid-autumn.

Since the complete program is physically demanding, you could spread the load by tackling a different task each weekend, but do them all straight after mowing as you need short grass to work on.

The Basic Version

For a healthy lawn there are certain essential jobs you must do. Begin by mowing the grass, picking up the clippings with a grass box if your mower has one. Then mow again, but this time at right angles to the first cut. This lifts up any grasses that usually lie flat, so they get cut off too.

Next rake the lawn. This is not just a superficial raking that scratches over the top of grass as when collecting fallen leaves. You need to rake right down so that the teeth reach the soil under the grass, dragging out all the moss, old, trailing, brown stems and bits of dried-up lawn mowings that have been trodden into the surface. If you are doing the job by hand, the tool to use is a wire rake with a fan-shaped head made up of lots of long, springy teeth or tines.

Unless your lawn is quite small or you are into fitness training, the easiest way of doing the job is with a powered lawn raker. Small, electric models are man enough for a medium-sized lawn, but you can get large and powerful lawn rakers from specialist turf equipment suppliers and sometimes from local tool-hire firms. Go over the lawn twice: once up and down and a second time at right angles, to get out as much material as possible. If you have not done the job before, you will be staggered at the amount of rubbish that comes out. Don't worry if it leaves the lawn looking very thin or shaggy afterwards: young, healthy grass will be able to grow to fill in the gaps, which is the object of the exercise.

Now, sprinkle lawn fertilizer evenly over the lawn, using an autumn formulation. This is low in nitrogen so it won't make the grass grow fast, but it is high in phosphates which will benefit the roots and helps to thicken and toughen the grass. Carry out these essential jobs each autumn and you will lay the foundations for a great lawn next season.

The De-Luxe Version

If you really want a prize lawn, there are two more things you can do, after completing the essential jobs. The first is to slash the lawn to aerate it and loosen up soil that has been squashed down hard over years of use. Lawn aerators have blades that knife down into the ground, letting in air and helping rainwater to drain away. (This is the same sort of treatment that is used on football pitches after matches: sports turf gets even harder wear than domestic lawns and needs even more maintenance for the grass to survive.) Hand aerators are available, but powered ones are much less effort - some mowers can be fitted with special attachments so the grass is aerated at the same time as you mow.

Finally top dress the lawn. You can buy bags of ready-made lawn top dressing, otherwise use bags of seed compost. Don't use potting compost because it has too much fertilizer for this job. Scatter the top dressing about 0.5cm (1/4in) thick all over the lawn spreading it with a rake. Use a besom broom to work it into the surface. It should disappear between the blades of grass, not bury them.

Lawn maintenance is exhausting, but you will notice an enormous difference in the lawn within a few weeks. And by the following spring, it will look as good as new.