First mow of 2012

Jayo11780

Gave my 3/4 acre lawn it's first mow of the year yesterday... man the grass is in bits.. It seems to have turned into a meadow over the winter.
I have a ride-on mower which I used to mulch the grass for the past two years but yesterday I just collected the grass in the box and dispensed of it (Took 2 hours as opposed to 1 to mow it painfully!!)

I am concerned about the amount of moss and weeds within the lawn... it looks terrible. Thistles and the lot contained within it, also some of the grass looks completely dead.
The lawn is almost 3 years old and sowed on a sandy soil.
I need to give it a feed of some sort as I want it looking well come the summer.

Last year i got a bag of 3-in one stuff which seemed to do the trick, cost 80Euro and I only used 1 bag instead of the 3 that'd be required to do a lawn the size of mine.

Can somebody advise please?

thanks in advance..

Jayo

secman

Surprised that you got away with first cut up to now, i did my 5th cut of the year on a similar size plot. Over the next few weeks I will scarify the lawns, that will get rid of most of the moss and thatch. The lawn will look worse but only for a week or so, I will then watch the weather and wait for a dry 3 day spell to be followed by a dose of rain. When it comes I will apply a weed and feed, using 2 to 3 sacks of it. By early summer it will look a lot better. moss should be gone, weeds too and it will green up nicely.

Secman

tommycahir

Having a similar problem myself but am on my 5/6th cut of my 1/4 acre lawn using a self propelled mower.

There is a lot of moss in certain patches and some thatch there also..

I was considering getting a bag of iron sulphate and applying that then scarifying and over seeding and then finally feeding it over the space of 3/4 weeks..

Is this he correct approach? Or have people any other suggestions?

liamhana

i just spread a bag of iron sulphate across a fairly large section of the lawn - and over the weekend while we were away its done its job & started to kill off the moss...but its gonna take a lot of raking to clean it out Its not too patchy so hopefully over the next month it will fill back out.... I'm going to give a feed in late april for the summer.

tommycahir

Thanks Liam for the response,
I rang the local GRT hire place this morning and they will hire a scarifier for the day for €50 and the guy I spoke to confirmed spreading iron sulphate 1st and leave for a week or 2, then scarifying is the way to go. Then spread some seed and feed in the few weeks afterwards..

This is the bag of iron sulphate that was recommended Link

tommycahir

Jayo11780 wrote: »

Thistles and the lot contained within it, also some of the grass looks completely dead.

In regards the thistles what I have usually done is to cut them as deep as possible into the root (even cutting using a knife under the soil level) and then putting a drop of weed killer on the root prevents them coming back.

liamhana

thats the stuff i used - I got it for 11.99 in the local arro.
With regards to thistles - I just dabbed some petrol from the lawn mower can onto them and they burnt away never to return!

tommy2bad

Jayo11780 wrote: »

The lawn is almost 3 years old and sowed on a sandy soil.
I need to give it a feed of some sort as I want it looking well come the summer.

Last year i got a bag of 3-in one stuff which seemed to do the trick, cost 80Euro and I only used 1 bag instead of the 3 that'd be required to do a lawn the size of mine.


Jayo

Do you know a farmer who could give you a bag and a half of 18.6.12?
It costs about 45 euro for 50kg maybe more in 50kg bags. Spread half now and half in aug. Green for the year.

jinkybhoy

Sorry to hijack thread but can you explain what you mean by scarify?

I have a lawn that is quite weedy and mossy and would love to know what to do to make it better?

it's just under an acre and have been mowing for last 5 weeks.

Thanks in advance

tommycahir

jinkybhoy wrote: »

Sorry to hijack thread but can you explain what you mean by scarify?

I have a lawn that is quite weedy and mossy and would love to know what to do to make it better?

it's just under an acre and have been mowing for last 5 weeks.

Thanks in advance

I was in pretty much the same boat as you having a patch of lawn full of moss and other parts of it full of thatch so I done as I had outlined above and now it is starting to come back nicely after a feed of 7-6-17..

Have a look at this site for some info on scarifying and other aspects of lawn maintenance - http://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/amateur/

jinkybhoy

thanks for the reply

shamcfc

jinkybhoy wrote: »

Sorry to hijack thread but can you explain what you mean by scarify?

I have a lawn that is quite weedy and mossy and would love to know what to do to make it better?

it's just under an acre and have been mowing for last 5 weeks.

Thanks in advance

Jelly and ice cream

celticmicky

shamcfc wrote: »

Jelly and ice cream

Hopefully soon enough :cool:

shamcfc

celticmicky wrote: »

Hopefully soon enough :cool:

jinkybhoy

wish they'd hurry up - I need the room in my fridge for real food!!!