Lawn A&E

Hi KatTai

If you want to revitalize your lawn, get the moss and clover out, and get the grass growing again, then the best thing to do would be to have it scarified.

Gardeners hire large pro versions of small scarifiers, that do a really good job.

It will look a lot worse before it looks better, but it really gives a lawn a new lease of life.

Spot weeding is the best way to kill dandelions.

if moneys no object id buy an electric lawnraker use that first and rake out the dead grass moss n thatch then in the spring weed n feed b and q do an own brand which is cheaper than fisons etc then just do as the instructions it makes a hell of a difference then as ive lots of time on my hands i prowl the lawn with my daisy grubber lifting out all the weeds that have been missed by hand

                                                             hope this helps a bit    keith

And if money is an object and you really want to get rid of some of the moss, you can do it yourself with a good metal grass rake.  And it is a good work out too!

Dig out the dandelions, daisies et with a daisy grubber, as Keith says.  You need to get deep underneath them to get out as much of the root as possible.  Also, if you have nothing better to do, you can go round pouring salt on to the crowns of these weeds.  If they escape all this, you need to pick off the flowers as they come out, to stop them turning in beautiful dandelion clocks and spreading seeds everywhere.  Well that is what my OH suggests.  Funnily enough I quite like dandelions and daisies............... And the chickens like daisies - to eat.

Thanks for the tips all!

Chris - just looking up scarifying on the internet and it says that it's not to be done in spring when the grass is just starting to grow, do you recommend a time of year to do the scarifying or how longn after the grass has started growing to do it?

Will continue to pull up the dandilions, they are a right pain tried to get the deeper part of the root out for one that was growing in my rockery and nearly ended up pulling down my rockery wall!  It was determined to stay put.  In the end I settled for just ripping off as much as I could. 

scarifying can be done early spring as well as in the autumn. we bought an electric scarifier last year as we have 4 separate lawn areas, 2 of which are heavily shaded by a hedge & get full of moss. although hand scarifying will do the job, i was amazed at how much the electric one pulled out - we ended up with 2 of those council garden recycling bags full - per lawn! it really did an excellent job & didn't damage the growing grass at all. if you have a fair bit of lawn i'd highly recommend one

btw if you want to plant wildflowers you'll need to get rid of the lawn as they won't be able to compete with the grass & wildflowers need poor soil, generally lawned areas are too rich

Hi Kat

The last time I saw my gardener he said he was trying to get enough people together to make hiring a scarifier a reasonable price for all, so I was assuming it was fairly soon.

Daisy rooters are great for getting dandelions out, but it sounds as if you have loads - you could try using a paintbrush dipped in white vinegar, salt and a dash of washing up liquid and painting it on the leaves, it will eventually kill them - or a little hand spray - but be warned it will kill everything it touches - so be careful with it. Of course the grass will look even more of a mess until they're dead. You can get large quantities of white vinegar online, it's used a lot for organic household cleaning. The moss can be raken up and left in a nice pile for birds to use for nesting material and of course, it will compost down nicely - I think I'd let it dry out a bit before I composted it but that may not be necessary - the heat of the heap should do for it. And scarifying can be done with a garden fork, fill in the tine holes with course horticultural sand, to help with drainage, moss only grows where drainage is poor and the clover, well bees LOVE clover and as they are struggling, I'd leave it, but then I would, you may like a neat lawn - personally I don't, I let grass grow and flower to encourage insects, grasshoppers and the like, they in turn encourage swallows, swifts, martins to feed above your garden:-)) and of course, tits, sparrows and all benefit too and so do their babies:-)) Finches love grass seeds if the grasses are allowed to flower and set seed. If you take that option, you need only mow in earlish spring and latishautumn - one less thing to do. Some reptiles are fond of grasshoppers and insects I beleive:-) But you'd know better than I about that.

Hi Kezsmum - I'm not after a perfect lawn, that takes far too much tending to and with a dog it's a losing battle!  I think I will leave the clover.  It's at grass level, looks pretty nice especially when flowering and it good for the soil and insects so it is a beneficial plant to have, it also doesn't seem to take over other parts of the garden, just that part of the lawn that it really seems to like.  Though to be honest, the clover is a lot easier to deal with than the grass as that just gets on with it and looks green lol  The rest of the lawn is patchy with some big clumps of grass, bare patches etc.  I think part of the problem may be that the lawn was never watered in the summer when it got hot so dried out (though oddly it never bothered the clover?).  We're trying to avoid the lawn becoming like a jungle (again) so we don't want the grass to grow too long - we're planning on keeping it at 60mm but I doubt the mower will be out too often lol 

I'll rake up the moss for the birdies though, have a nice little wire thing to put it in too!

Very cool Alan!  My garden is like yours, the back is shaded for most of the day by the hedge plus it has pretty bad drainage in that area I think so the moss thrives there.