Lawn help!

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

I hope its ok to post this here, as a bit of a newbie when it comes to lawn care I'd appreciate any help and input.

We had a new lawn laid in early October last year when we had our garden landscaped. It looked good when laid although I had some concerns when I gave it it's first mow that it was a bit lumpy and bumpy in places. Our landscaper insisted it was fine - I had my doubts although I've since had a few other people it's perfectly acceptable for a utility lawn.

Roll forward to now and never having had a lawn before I don't really know what to expect the lawn to be like after winter. There are a few issues:

* Some areas of lighter, yellow patches. I had somebody round to give me a quote for a lawn treatment plan and he identified it as red thread - he said it's not worth worrying about and after fertilising and some good growth it will just mow out.

* Unwanted bulbs! Unfortunately our landscapers didn't really do the best job of clearing the ground of bulbs although I guess expecting them to get them all out might have been wishful thinking. We have some crocus popping up in places which are fine, they look nice and will just mow out when they are finished, but the worst culprit are bluebells. I'm not sure which time but they are really annoying - the leaves are hard underfoot and I can't see any easy way of getting the bulbs up with digging up loads of turf, so I've resorted to simply using a knife to cut away the foliage below the ground with the hope that eventually it will weaken the bulbs.

* Dead patches. There are a few isolated dead patches and in some of the more shaded areas it's looking a bit sparse.

I'll try and attach some photos which will help give you an idea. I have no idea if our lawn is looking good for late winter/early spring so would be good to get somebody else's opinion.

What should be my plan of action to get a nice, thick, green and relatively weed free lawn by Summer? Should I wait to see if the patchy areas fill in naturally or should I just bite the bullet and overseed at the end of March? I've heard that the Lawnsmith ShadyGreen seed is good for shaded areas.

What about fertilising? The lawn could probably do with a good spring/summer fertiliser but will this be ok if I'm also overseeding?

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

A few photos to help...

A general photo of the lawn:


Thinner patches - we did have some white stringy fungus/mould in this area in late November/early December. No signs of it anymore:




Yellow patches (red thread?)


Random patches:

[Martin H]

That lawn is looking pretty decent considering the time of year and the weather we've had lately.

The usual advice to make a fine English lawn is "roll and mow for 200 years". So a bit of patience is needed...

but to shortcut things by a couple of centuries I would suggest:
- it's time to start mowing. Keep the blades high enough so that you don't scalp the bumps and it will look fine.
- If you've got a rake thingy then I'd use that before the first couple of mows, just to get rid of any winter rubbish and also to lift up any flattened grass.
- Get some spring feed, it should go on at the end of this month or start of April. That will green it up and get the grass growing strongly.
- There's not much you can do about bluebells beyond what you are already doing. They will get weaker year by year and will disappear eventually. Until that happens, at least they will have died back by the start of June each year.
- The random bare patches will fill in by themselves but won't be gone until next summer. You could overseed if you want to hurry it along, but unless it's the same strain of grass the reseeded bits will still look different from the rest. Personally I wouldn't bother, you can't get a bowling green or putting green without starting again with a foot of foundations! A nice, even utility lawn is what you'r looking for, I expect.
- From the pictures, the humps and hollows don't look too bad, especially for a new lawn. It's possible to gradually lift hollows by topdressing them with successive thin layers of sandy soil, or to lower humps by peeling back the turf and removing soil; but you have to be a bit keen to do that sort of thing. Again, unless they are a trip hazard I would personally just keep the grass long enough so that you don't notice.

Even if you don't do anything except mow, the lawn will look much better in a couple of months. That's why the advertisers always go full-on at Easter: they know that by the end of April people will put the improvement down to the stuff they just bought.

Good luck, have fun and let us know how you get on!

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Thanks for your comments Martin. It’s reassuring to hear you say it looks in good shape. I guess part of the problem is just not knowing what it ought to look like at this time of the year. The downside I suppose of having landscaping done in Autumn is it looks ok for about a month before Winter hits and then you’ve got 4 months of it looking rough. We are still waiting to see what our new borders look like in Spring and Summer because it’s all new.

I was tempted to get some ShadyGreen seed from Lawnsmith for along the fence and it will probably be a similar hard wearing mix. I’m wary of leaving the bare patches exposed as they are already attracting weeds.

I will be getting some spring fertiliser down later this month so as you say, between fertiliser, some sunshine and starting to regularly mow it should start looking a lot nicer in a few months.

[Aberdeenplotter]

My lawn yesterday

[rary]

That's the good thing about the snow AP it makes your garden look as good as everyone else's

[rary]

T.C.P you could try removing the blueberry with one of those tools that some folk use for removing dandelions from the lawn, and the only other advice I would give after Martin's is to cut your lawn in a different direction every cut, if N,S the first cut EW the next cut, this I was told many years ago helps make the roots stronger

[Snadger]

Yellow areas can be caused by red thread but you would be able to see the pinkish tinge in the grass prior to the yellownwess? Its more likely to be AMG annual meadow grass which is a shallow rooted pale coloured weed grass.Where you have soil on the surface will probably be from casting worms. Depending on where you got the turf from it will probably be a mixture of fescue's and bents. If you want more wear tolerance over seeding the whole lawn after heavy scarification with a springbok rake with a turf type perennial rye grass would work.
Me personally, I would leave it alone apart from maybe a high nitrogen liquid or granular feed in April/May.