Talkback: Autumn lawn care

Gardeners' World Web User

is it now to late to seed my lawn as if so when can i seed it will it noe be spring just moved to a new house and the grass looks bad i have never seeded before.

Gardeners' World Web User

have had a new turf lawn laid (3 weeks ago) and have just mowed it for the first time,on a high setting (35) with a hand rotary mower.Should I scarify,aieate or treat at all?The chap at my local garden centre says not til Spring is this correct?I intent to continue mowing once a week on the high setting,is it necessary to mow all through winter?

Gardeners' World Web User

I'm a strong believer of putting in the hard work of autumn lawn care. If you want a first rate lawn carrying out the long winded tasks of scarifying, aerating and top dressing is essential. I have recently carried out all of these tasks, all by hand i might add, but i would recommend buying or hiring a petrol/electric scarifier for a large area. The lawn will look a complete disaster zone and you may be thinking what have i done. But don't worry as within a week the grass will show signs of recovery.

ross2

Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

In my years of experience of golf course management and as an independent lawn care operator i would like to say,

September, going into late October is a good time to overseed a lawn.  If you are now cutting a new lawn, keep cutting on a weekly basis, while good growth is with us, reduce your cutting to say monthly when the growth slows right down.  You can slowly reduce the height as well, but remember never cut off more than a third in height.  There is no need to scarify or aerate a newly seeded lawn, please dont!. you will rip up all your hard work.  It is my opinion that the best time to scarify a lawn, if needed, is early spring.  If i can be of any more help please email me at [email protected]

/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";}