How accepable is it to turf over existing lawn?
I either have to turf a new bit of lawn and then somehow resurect the existing bit now it has been converted from the hay field state it was is when littered with hardcore ands other debris, or just turf over the lot.
I'm not quite sure what your disjointed appraisal covered but to get an old lawn back to a fairly reasonable state, all you need is water. The wetter the better. If you can get grey water that will do.
Water the lawn. Then feed and water the lawn then when the grass is growing long enough to need a hair cut, rake out the debris.
Water the lawn again then a few days later cut it.
It should be noticeably on the mend by then. Get a roller to press any remaining debris back under, feed and water and next year all will be forgiven. It won't be tip top and there will be a plethora of weeds but systematic erradication will get it ship shape in a year or less.
Since we are at a bad time to turf, I'd hang on a couple of months and sew seed if I wanted to go the "rip it all out and start again" route. September and October are the best months for planting grass.
It depends on what you want the final result to look like. If there are bumps and hollows in the ground now, they will show through new turf laid on top, and weeds will grow through. Ideally, the old turf, topsoil and rubble needs digging out then new top soil spread and levelled, then either grass seed sown or new turf laid. An alternative is to kill the grass and weeds with Weedol, then rotovate the ground, rake level, then lay turf on that. If you buy turf, beware of cheap meadow turf unless you don't mind it looking like a pasture of broad-leaved grass.
And remember - green side up!
|Phil Anthropist wrote: |>If you buy turf, |> beware of cheap meadow turf unless you don't mind it looking like a |> pasture of broad-leaved grass. | |And remember - green side up!
You're kidding ;-)
The message from Dave Fawthrop contains these words:
Oh, it's supposed to look like that, sir. The grass grows up through the sod. It'll green-up in no time.
I knew there would be one! ;-)
All good advice I am sure, but speed is of the essence here.
The lawn in question was allowed to grow far too long and remained uncared for for several months. It was then reduced in height but shortly after had various amounts of stuff including slabs, hardcore, and soil piled onto it for a couple of weeks.
The debris is now gone and it has been thoroughly mown and raked. The existing grass (such as it is) is level enough with no bumps etc. The grass it patchy and weak but probably could be revived with TLC and time. However a new extended section to the lawn has been added, filled with soil and raked level - but with as yet no grass.
Hence the simplest "quick fix" seemed to be slap turf over the whole lot and keep it well watered, unless there was some reason for it being a major problem covering existing grass like this.
Hoping the place will be sold before then!
Grass is very forgiving. It will invert itself very quickly :-)
I have to add, how do you tell the green side in this weather?
Up here, in the North West, what is normally the green part of England, we are experiencing our grass going brown, or straw colour. Not many fields are green right now. No rain since: well, I don't remember when.
Dave
then I'd say youre out of luck, unless willing to implement a fairly intensive watering program without a single day's letup. Without that I doubt either turf or seed would get far at this time. Even with an established root system grass often dies back in this weather.
In principle a lawn is created solely by mowing. Weeds grow, including grasses, and the mower kils everything but the grass. Rinse and repeat. Difficult to know what route to suggest in your position. Perhaps seed it and tell the buyer the lawn will have to wait till autumn to get going.
If you do youve got 2 lots of grass competing, which wont help either lot grow. I'd just leave it, the grass covered for 2 weeks will have a good root system there and it will be quicker to come back than any new grass.
NT
That really _Really_ is not the way to do it, if you want to make a proper job of it. Ask on uk.rec.gardening
-You cna turf over your existing lawn ... but you need to prepare it first to the same standard as if you were laying seed. Just putting turf on top of the old compacted unprepared surface will not achieve much.
No! Just exhibiting my comprehensive knowledge of gardening!
Indeed, we have been wanting to turf for almost 2 years now, but have been unable to because of the water shortage. (We haven't been on hosepipe ban for that time, but it didn't seem environmentally responsible as the water shortage was well known). If it goes on any longer, we will be installing plastic grass.
Christian.
|> then I'd say youre out of luck, unless willing to implement a fairly |> intensive watering program without a single day's letup. | |Indeed, we have been wanting to turf for almost 2 years now, but have been |unable to because of the water shortage. (We haven't been on hosepipe ban |for that time, but it didn't seem environmentally responsible as the water |shortage was well known). If it goes on any longer, we will be installing |plastic grass.
Really depends on the design of house and gardens, but can you not use grey/bath/washing machine water on the lawns. During the last drought I did this and it worked quite well.
I re-did my lawn in May, not quite soon enough. Rotavated the old lawn and laid seed. What was surprising was how quickly it came up and gave pretty reasonable looking grass - well it would have done if my hand sowing had been more even. I didn't consider turf because of the water situation: in my case it was £15 worth of seed or £300 of turf; if the latter just expires and I have to start again, no great loss.
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