Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.
LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry
LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.
For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.
Replies
As always wet winters can be hard on new lawns, coupled with the fact we had an unusually dry September
I wouldn't be to hasty on spending money on it, why not give it a fork to aerate the soil and give it a good rake with a spring back rake over seed and feed - shouldn't take any more than an hour or so of your time...
Does it get any light at all? Looks like fences and the shed on three sides, presumably a house behind you?
Combine that with poor soil, poor drainage etc. and it might always be an uphill struggle.
yes it does get some light but not around the edges to much so to be honest pretty suprised the edges have taken. giving it a rake, aerate and over seed was another option, just personally never done it on a newly seeded lawn and didnt want to do to much damage to the new grass and wanted opions so i can go at it with confidence!! always new this lawn was going to be a struggle especially as its 30minute drive but will bite the bullet and go and give it some tlc and advise that any further will cost! cheers
I would also chuck in the mowing technique and cut height as a secondary factor.
It's been a funny autumn/winter/spring. Firstly, the lawn and soil would have been battered with 3 months of autumn/early winter rain, probably leaching any nutrients from the first couple of inches of soil, so the germinated grass would just sit there or rot off. When the welcome spring came, the evenings have been so cold, that the ground has probably struggled to warm up yet.
I reckon an over-seed, with a base fertilizer like 7.7.7 Growmore will get the grass moving.
um those pics show water on the surface? That will be the route cause of that problem! Typical buidlers job really - no effort whatsoever taken to prepare to soil! the first pic shows what looks to be water on the soil surface. (when zoomed in)
I would aerate, top dress, fertilize with a balenced feed and raise the cut height. You may also need to install some drainage!
looks like it stands water when it gets rain as there is old fungi on the soil fork all over as deep as you can and top dress with sand and re seed
Turf suppliers will normally use an economy/ hard-wearing seed mix - typically 50% rye / 50% creeping fescue. From the wet soil and shade of the fences, I would guess the rye has struggled and failed to establish while the creeping fescue, which is always slow to establish, has plodded on with difficult conditions.
As the others have said - aerate, top dress, overseed (with non-ryegrass, heavy fescue mix) and raise mower to allow tillering/ spreading
Regards
RIchard@Progreen
(01778) 394052
thanks for all the advice. some great stuff that will stick with me as have never had to deal with a newly seeded lawn. thanks again. have contacted the customer will wait and see!