Flipping over turf

[Bod]

(my landscape gardener (*friend*) I should have added :-)

[Chris Green]

Yes, it doesn't take *that* long either, maybe 12 months to be acceptable and a couple of years to look really good. I remember we did this at my parents' house many years ago (1950s/1960s), it used to be mowed (mostly by me) with a Suffolk Punch mower. I guess the rolling action of the mower helped too.

[Martin Brown]

It might be doable if you have a lawn roller, but you will need to kill the old grass first or it will regrow from the inverted turf. I compost stack the pieces of turf I cut up and the top of the stack goes grassy.

Simple solution is a 12" screwdriver down the side of the tap root and a gentle levering action. It makes a satisfying noise as the root breaks and the trick is to pull as long a piece as you can get. Might take a couple of goes for a big established one with a deep root.

Failing that hit them with Verdone spot weeding or if they still do it a gel wand formulation. I only persecute dandelions and buttercup in my lawns - modest amount of other wildflowers are welcomed.

[Judith]

There was once a new couple looking at a house being built for them. They were taken around the almost finished house by the foreman.

They noticed that he kepi shouting out of the windows "Green side up".

When asked why : he was shouting at the gang of navvies - laying the lawns.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Chris Hogg writes

Got to be worth a try:-)

Many years ago, I was asked by some friends to spray off and rotavate an established lawn where they had built a house. The job looked easy enough although there were trees and borders.

Knapsack, spray bar and Glyphosate did for the grass and 2 weeks later I went back with a small tractor and mounted rotavator.

Big mistake! No matter how many times I went over the ground, it remained *fluffy* from all the fibrous roots chopped up and mixed with a little soil.

Ploughing works by parking the vegetation several inches below the new surface and, for the old grass/cereal rotation, Autumn ploughing and Spring planting.

Let the grass grow so you have plenty of target leaf, spray off. Mow/remove top cover when dead. Spread your soil, compact and level. Seed and lightly rake in. Discourage Cats and Foxes from excavating holes:-)

>

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Landscape gardener eh? Snob!

[Huge]

Oldy but goody!

This one is true;

My brother was engaged in stealing freshly laid turf from a nearby housing estate project to turf his own garden. Him and a friend (*) were busily rolling it up and loading it in the friend's van, when a car logo-ed up with the name of the developer turned into the street. My brother and friend promptly started taking the turf out of the van and putting it back down. The driver of the car stopped, leaned out, said "Good job, well done!" and drove off. Whereupon my brother and friend resumed putting the turf back in the van.

Next time; why my brother's bathroom was tiled with the same tiles as the local pub.

(* No, not me. He and I have not spoken for 30 years.)

[Andrew Gabriel]

One trick I've seen for that is, let it grow a bit more, and that course grass tends to be higher. Use a glyphosate glove to sweep across just making contact with this higher grass. That will eliminate it. You can (or could) buy glyphosate gloves, but you can probably make one with a disposable plastic glove to keep it off your skin.

Of course, depends on the extent of it.

[Vir Campestris]

"The lawn was one of those tended according to the old British formula: Seed and roll for 500 years"

(Ringworld, Larry Niven, 1972.)

Andy

[newshound]

I believe it is an evolution thing. Grass grows from the bottom, which is why they survive grazing herbivores better than broad-leaf plants, which grow from the top.

[Bod]

[Huge]

Dandelions just grow close to the ground instead.

[Bod]

But regular grass cutting stops the Dandelions fron turning each one into thousands of more Dandelion seeds. As soon as I cut the lawn I don't see any Dandelions and our grass then looks like any other lawn that doesn't have them. That's good enough for me. You can never win the Dandelion war simply because, even if you eradicate them in your garden, within a few weeks seeds from Dandelions in other gardens will blow over and they will germinate in yours. It's a waste of time and effort to spend your life trying to eradicate them. Just cut the lawn every week, IMO.

[charles]

doesn't help; they turn up in flower beds, in the wild (bluebell covered) ground, under hedges, in cracks in the drive, etc.

[Max Demian]

That doesn't mean grass *likes* being cut.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

It has no noticeable effect on its health.

[Bod]

Cutting lawns stimulates grass growth:

Does mowing the lawn promote grass growth? | Yahoo Answers

seems like my lawn is filling in the bare spots and I have not planted seed. ... Yes mowing the grass will stimulate growth. Not only will it spread seeds but it also ...

[Bod]

Yes it does. It promotes fresh growth.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

The grass may well be annoyed at having to start again. It wants to be making seeds.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

My next door neighbour keeps asking if I would mind if they remove the heads of the ones in my garden that are seeding :-)