My wife wants me to put down some turf, but I've told her that no-one does that nowadays. Am I right? I haven't seen anyone laying turf for years.
- posted
14 years ago
My wife wants me to put down some turf, but I've told her that no-one does that nowadays. Am I right? I haven't seen anyone laying turf for years.
You must be blind or never leave the house:-)
Look for turf suppliers on google
Adam
Local B&Q has loads of it.
B & Q with a garden centre sell it
I guess one used to see it being laid down for cricket pitches, etc, but now they all seem to use astro-turf.
Also, my impression is that grass seed is much improved, with anti-bird covering and automatic watering.
Plenty going on on golf courses and the like.
Turf. Advantages: Quick to lay. Good overall effect quickly. Usually foolproof ( Unless you're a complete gardening numpty). Good for immediate to the eye results and replacing large areas with good cover especially if you are tarting up to sell house. Disadvantages: More expensive than seed. More work involved in prep' and laying. Heavy (Especially after the first 50 or so)
Seed Advantages: Cheaper than turf. Possibly easier to do. Good for patching small areas. Thousands of varieties available. Disadvantages: Good bird food. Not usable until established properly. Susceptible to frost (Not all seed is). Can blow away if ground not finished with a suitable covering/dressing.
Personally if I have the time I prefer to seed, but turf gives excellent results quickly and saves the earache of the woman-that-knows-all indoors.
So which do you reckon a landscaper would prefer?
I've never seen anyone walking elephants along my street but I'm sure they still exist :-)
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No.
Timothy Murphy formulated on Friday :
I saw a pile stacked up outside B&Q mid-week.
Nice try, no cigar :-)
According to my landscaper mate the B&Q turf is s**te, his suggestion is to go to an independant grower.
B&Q sell it but it is expensive and crap. Look in local directory under turf - there'll be dozens of suppliers, some even lay it for you, at a price
Nope.
Loads of places do it. Just bought some from a reasonably popular garden centre chain.
Al.
They still lay it, but the latest fashion is to lay it "brown side up"
In message , ARWadsworth writes
And it can be tax deductible if you use a turf accountant ...
A bit of freezing speeds up the process of busting out the husk, which is why grass seed goes best sown in September/October (for early autumn frosts) or March/April (for late spring ones). If you're sowing during the summer, germination can be sped up by sticking the seed in the freezer for a few days before sowing.
Ian
Hence my statement of not all is. The finer grasses are extremely fine seed, which, as you would expect would not suffer as well as some of the creeping and fescues. "Lawn" seed can be a varied mixture of differing types, as can grazing, utility and others. Best results I ever had for overseeding was a bag "Donated" by a local council subby that errantly sprayed my front garden (Overspray) while doing the pathways. Turned out to be the hardiest utility stuff they used for motorway verges. Parked cars on it and each year it came back stronger.
Seems to need much more water than seeds whilst becoming established. Can be wrecked by one really hot/sunny day early on if you aren't there to spray it.
It was the varieties available which swung it for me. I wanted a fine decorative grass which wasn't going to be subjected to any hard wear, and you just don't get that level of choice with turf.
I think all grass seed nowadays is coated with something that tastes nasty. Birds never showed any interest in the lawn I seeded.
Blowing around once on the ground didn't seem to happen. Blowing around whilst spreading it could be an issue, if you have areas where you don't want grass. I masked off some flower bed areas with boards. You can use a weed killer spray to knock out any unwanted patches which grow away from other plants.
The ground is initially easy and inviting for animals which want to come along and dig holes, until the grass is established. Keep back a little seed for any areas which need repairs.
They use turf where instant gratification is required and it doesn't matter (to them) if it goes brown and curls up a couple of days later. Where instant gratification isn't required, seed is used IME. I've also seen rottable netting with seeds attached, used on steep grass banks.
I have some "Autumn grass seed" (Herbstrasen) from Lidl which comes up a treat.
Ian
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