Sowing and Turfing

Whether the lawn is to be made from seed or turf, thorough ground preparations are necessary. Having ensured that the drainage is satisfactory the next job is to dig the soil thoroughly. For spring sowing, l like to get this done in the autumn. In this way the soil is cultivated before the really bad weather arrives, and the latter can be put to work breaking down the rough clods. It is best at this stage to leave the soil rough to provide maximum exposure to the rain, frost and snow, just in case any of these occur. You need to remove all roots of perennial weeds as you go along, particularly couch grass.

This is the most pernicious of weeds. Get every bit of couch out or there could be trouble later. Another guard against water logging on heavy soil is to work coarse sand into the top few inches of soil. This could be anything up to 14 lb per sq. yd.

Digging in fibrous peat is useful on any type of soil. The peat needs to be worked into the top few inches; and when determining the rate of application, you need to work on the principle that the sandier the soil the heavier should be the dressing. Such additions should be made shortly before seed sowing or turfing.

lf you have autumn sowing in mind, or you are planning to lay turf between November and March, then let the ground lie fallow during the summer. You need to hoe it occasionally to break down the lumps and keep newly germinated weeds under control.

Leveling is important for obvious reasons, since you cannot do very much about this once the grass has grown. It is worth taking the trouble to peg out the site.

The pegs should be related to the previous one for depth. When the board is rested on any two of them, the bubble in the spirit level is dead centre. Of course, while considering leveling, it is important to maintain a sense of proportion and not forget that minor irregularities in a lawn surface can add to its attractiveness sometimes.  The main thing to be kept in mind is to ensure that none of the processes adopted should be done to make mowing difficult. Finally, you need to rake the soil and remove sizeable stones. If there are any grubs, give the soil a dressing of BHC or trichlorphon.