Hi all,
I've started a contract where they have a large lawn with serious drinage issues. Land drains are going in soon, and I'll be working on getting the lawn renovated.
Apart from lots of clover and buttercups, and very little grass, there is masses of Carex that's obviously thrived and spread in the watterlogged conditions. Would I be right in thinking this isn't going to be controlled by a lawn weed treatment, as it's a form of grass itself?
Hand weeding isn't really an option as it's a large area and there isn't the budget. I'm guessing mowing isn't going to help either, as sedge just gets thicker and spreads more if you take the tops off it. I might be able to get extra money to scarify, but again wonder if that will remove millions of tiny sedge seedlings, or even increase the problem?
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Don't suppose you have a picture?
Hi Robbie,
I have, but young carex looks like grass so in the pic it's not really clear. Bit of a nightmare, as I know that it'll only get worse if not dealt with, the client is spending £000s on French drains, but won't consider just re-turfing the whole lot. It's about 400M2 I guess, so understand their reluctance when they see pictures of "green", even if it's not grass (they're living abroad).
What I really need is to know what, if any, selctive weedkillers will deal with carex, but not also damage the grass. Which, I think, is going to be too close a genetic match....
In this pic, of one bit of the lawn, the carex is the slightly blue-green (I guess), in the top left corner, between 10 and 12 o'clock.
Just to add, this is a rental worth many thousands a month, probably a £2M-plus house. Much of the garden is totally waterlogged, almost like quicksand, and the new tenants are up in arms as their kids can't use the lawn. This is what it looks like all over! Some parts have stinking algae on the slimy mess that should be grass.....
Getting landlords to spend money isn't always easy!
Don't know about the sedges, but soft rush, juncus effuses, is another lover of wet, sour ground but once the drainage is right, and you can nurture the desirable grasses, will soon be mown out. Selectives won't touch it, I am sure.
We had a case of something like that a few years ago on the golf course I worked.
All sorts of things were tried to stop it from growing
Regular scarifying, aerating (Deep and shallow), we even dumped a load of Rescue Herbicide on top of it to no avail.
The fairway that the problem was on wasn't any wetter or drier than the other fairways.
In the end the area was sprayed with roundup, turf lifted and replaced.
I think it comes down to the expectations of the client and what standard of lawn they want and are prepared to pay for. If someone was going to town on drainage I would strongly suggest they send a bit on the lawn...
if land drains are going in it will make a mess of the lawn as i would imagine thay will use a digger if you are lucky the drain will go whare the sedge is or ask them to dig it out. or you could kill it off then ree seed, as it lookes like it will need dressing and seeding to make it anything like. (will the tenants be willing to put somthing towards the cost of re seeding) you maybe able to get away with a good scarifying then seeding
We have a couple of lawns with the same (or similar) problem. A very course grass - bit like a spider. Both customers have bird feeders next to the lawn and we gave guessed that this is where the seeds come from. The treatment (and you wont like it!) was to use my string lines to 'square' the areas into 600mm squares, get on my hand and knees and dab the centres of each plant with Roundup using a half inch artists brush.
Paul i would also suggest that if you were planning on re-turfing, cut an area around the edge of the lawn (The same size as the area you are going to turf) and use it for the patch work.
Then with the new turf place it around the edge, as the new turf will almost certainly have a different shade to that of the rest of the lawn and will look out of place in the middle of the lawn...