Thin out lawn

WhatsGoingOn2

Hi,

My lawn is very thick, more like a field than a lawn. I can only ever cut it at the highest setting. The base of the grass is rotting in parts. What is the best way to sort this? Should I scarify or aerate it? When is a good time to do this? I really would like a nice lawn rather than a constant battle to keep it cut.



Thanks.

Zardoz

Sounds and looks like you have alot of thatch in the lawn.
The best thing to do would be to scarify it heavily and apply fertiliser but its too late now to do it.
Best time would be early September .

Good guide here
http://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/topic/scarifying-raking/when-to-rake-or-scarify

lazybones32

Scarification is the answer. Use a petrol, electric or hand-held scarifier depending on the size of the lawn.
Irish Summers don't get too hot, so you could scarify it now and the grass won't suffer excess stress from heat or drought. And if by some miracle, the Sun shines for more than 3 days without rain, give the lawn a sprinkle.

Cut the lawn.
Scarify*.
Go over it with the mower again to collect the debris.
Apply a feed if you wish.
Aerating the lawn wouldn't be a bad idea but a mechanical spiker would be hard to justify. There are 'shoes' you can buy that have little spikes on them and the idea is you wear them while cutting the lawn and you aerate the top inch/half-inch at the same time.


*I prefer to remove the thatch over 2 or 3 sessions, instead of removing it in one go

_Brian

You could try mowing over a few times.
Highest setting, drop it a notch mow again, drop a notch now again, right down to the lowest setting.

Then let it come up and see, you'd be surprised how mug this will improve it.

Scarifying when you have it down would help but be ready for a serious job. Once sacrificed you could oversow with lawn seed.

Personally I'd now it down tight first and see how it goes.

lk67

Did you sow the lawn using proper lawn seed? It looks more like meadow grass or that wilder grasses have taken over.

gsi300024v

I saw lots of these types of lawn last year working for lawn care company, you can hire a scarified for 33 euro a day. Petrol one would be the way to go as you've so much thatch.
I'd go over it a few times, you really want to give it a good rip.
We'd ask people to really scalp the grass down before we went.
By this I meant just maybe 4 time each time going a bit lower, it you could get it down to an inch perfect. Collecting the grass as you cut. It's be very show and you'd need a decent petrol mower.
New weed scarify, you again want to go deep but you might need to do it once then drop it again. Generally you won't be able to pick up the scarified material with a lawn mower. So rake it one after each scarify.
We found if you mowed after your last scarify it left it tidy.
You really want to be able to see earth, not dead organic material. So this might take 3 passes with the scarifier or more, maybe less.
Next we would over seed it all, or the really bad areas that are very bare, then if you could put on a P fertiliser this will help the seed take off and root.
It will look terrible for a while, but it's a good time to do it if you can keep it wet. You want a sprinkler really for this and move it around.
I think it is a good time, if you don't mind it looking bad for a bit and you don't mind watering it'll come back quickly.
A good dry day is best, the drier the better for the cutting and the scarifying.
Once you have it done you'll be able to cut lower.
Just depends on you're lawn, if it's bumpy and you start mowing the lawn low you'll probably find bumps you never knew were there when you cut it at higher level.
You'll have a lot of material if you've a lot of thatch so be prepared.

WhatsGoingOn2

lk67 wrote: »

Did you sow the lawn using proper lawn seed? It looks more like meadow grass or that wilder grasses have taken over.

I bought the house (a bungalow in the country) a few years ago, so I don't know what the original owner did. But it is definitely more of a meadow than a lawn.
I'll try cutting it lower and lower gradually over the next week, and then maybe scarify and spread proper lawn seed over the next few weeks.

gsi300024v

Oh after seeding you could run over it with the back of a rake to push the seed into soil, also if some areas are very bare you could mix some soil seed and high P fert up and put it on that.
If over seeding seed really needs to be touching earth or it'll be wasted.

Zardoz

gsi300024v wrote: »

I saw lots of these types of lawn last year working for lawn care company, you can hire a scarified for 33 euro a day. Petrol one would be the way to go as you've so much thatch.
I'd go over it a few times, you really want to give it a good rip.
We'd ask people to really scalp the grass down before we went.
By this I meant just maybe 4 time each time going a bit lower, it you could get it down to an inch perfect. Collecting the grass as you cut. It's be very show and you'd need a decent petrol mower.
New weed scarify, you again want to go deep but you might need to do it once then drop it again. Generally you won't be able to pick up the scarified material with a lawn mower. So rake it one after each scarify.
We found if you mowed after your last scarify it left it tidy.
You really want to be able to see earth, not dead organic material. So this might take 3 passes with the scarifier or more, maybe less.
Next we would over seed it all, or the really bad areas that are very bare, then if you could put on a P fertiliser this will help the seed take off and root.
It will look terrible for a while, but it's a good time to do it if you can keep it wet. You want a sprinkler really for this and move it around.
I think it is a good time, if you don't mind it looking bad for a bit and you don't mind watering it'll come back quickly.
A good dry day is best, the drier the better for the cutting and the scarifying.
Once you have it done you'll be able to cut lower.
Just depends on you're lawn, if it's bumpy and you start mowing the lawn low you'll probably find bumps you never knew were there when you cut it at higher level.
You'll have a lot of material if you've a lot of thatch so be prepared.

Thats good advice but now really isn't the time of the year to be doing the job.
The ground is too hard and there isnt alot of growth with the heat .
If you scarify and then get a prolonged dry spell the lawn will be destroyed.
The seed will dry out as well on the soil ,its too dry and hard.

I'd wait until the last week in August .
For the cool-season-type grasses that we have here the time to scarify is simple … only when the grass is growing strongly enough to recover.
The grass in your lawn has two main growth periods, Spring and Autumn. This is why experts agree that you should only scarify a lawn in the spring or in the Autumn.

The best you can do is keep it fed, watered, and weed-free and put off any major work until the Autumn. If you must do something, then a summer aeration can work wonders, but refrain if the ground is baked hard with drought.
In September and October the soil is still warm, the air temperature cools and the moisture levels generally rise. All these factors encourage grass into it’s second growth spurt of the year, which means that this is the ideal time to scarify your lawn.
This is the time when you can go at it as hard as you can.

gsi300024v

Yeah I suppose, we did it all summer cause we had to, we couldn't wait until a certain time or we'd be snowed under doing them, and while when it's dry it's easiest to do the work for the person doing it, it doesn't mean it's best time for the lawn.

Shemale

I scarified my dads lawn 2 weeks ago have let the grass grow since. It looks really good.

Keep an eye on the forecast and do it a day or two before it rains.

If you are buying I got a Bosch AVR, it scarifies and aerates and does a great job, it can overheat but it's a good excuse for a break.

WhatsGoingOn2

Shemale wrote: »

I scarified my dads lawn 2 weeks ago have let the grass grow since. It looks really good.

Keep an eye on the forecast and do it a day or two before it rains.

If you are buying I got a Bosch AVR, it scarifies and aerates and does a great job, it can overheat but it's a good excuse for a break.

Where did you buy it?

Shemale

WhatsGoingOn2 wrote: »

Where did you buy it?

Was hoping you wouldn't ask :eek:

Bought it on Amazon.co.uk, it is very light, steel handle and blades, the rest is plastic. You get free super saver but word of warning the exchange rate is utter toilet at the moment

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bosch-AVR-1100-Verticutter-Lawnraker/dp/B0030BERK0/ref=sr_1_1?s=outdoors&ie=UTF8&qid=1435618304&sr=1-1&keywords=bosch+avr+1100

gsi300024v

It's only 33 euro a day to rent a decent petrol one, I'd go for that, if your lawn is as bad as it looks in the photo that box would be full in 2 yards that's if it could go as deep as the petrol one.
Also I doubt your lawn is that dry under all that thatch, so it would be more an issue of keeping it wet after it's done.

lk67

WhatsGoingOn2 wrote: »

I bought the house (a bungalow in the country) a few years ago, so I don't know what the original owner did. But it is definitely more of a meadow than a lawn.
I'll try cutting it lower and lower gradually over the next week, and then maybe scarify and spread proper lawn seed over the next few weeks.

If it's a reclaimed meadow you will never get a perfect lawn as it is different grass type. Those brown bits at the end of the blades of grass are not just thatch, they are the nature of the type of grass.

Try the scarifying to thin it out but a complete redo might be necessary if you want a perfect or near perfect lawn.

gsi300024v

You've a nice few weeds in there too, spray with some selective with 2-4-d in it would be good. You'll still get weeds after you scarify, the brown bits might just be it drying out a bit.

WhatsGoingOn2

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and help.

WhatsGoingOn2

I tried scarifying yesterday. I hired a scarifier for the day ( a decent John Deere petrol model), but it barely scratched the surface no matter what setting I had it at. My lawn is generally cut at the highest, but I cut it twice yesterday before hand to get is as low as I could, but it still didn't work.
I ended up top dressing the garden. I raked through a combination of compost and top soil and then raked grass seed through that, so hopefully that will make a difference.

gsi300024v

Are you sure that it was set right, sometimes there can be adjusters for the height as well as say a raising block that might be used for when you transport it, so as it sits and you adjust it on a drive way, it won't actually be that height possible on your lawn.
If there are wheels front and back you'd want to make sure if the scarifying blade is in the middle of the two sets of wheels that this blade sits below the bottom of the wheels when on a hard plat surface.
It could also simply be that the scarifying blade was worn down and so the diameter of it is smaller and you couldn't set it low enough to do any good.
Or maybe you've no thatch or moss etc so very little came off it, if this is the case you've a great lawn maybe already.

Could you see any marks in the clay from the blade?

WhatsGoingOn2

gsi300024v wrote: »

Are you sure that it was set right, sometimes there can be adjusters for the height as well as say a raising block that might be used for when you transport it, so as it sits and you adjust it on a drive way, it won't actually be that height possible on your lawn.
If there are wheels front and back you'd want to make sure if the scarifying blade is in the middle of the two sets of wheels that this blade sits below the bottom of the wheels when on a hard plat surface.
It could also simply be that the scarifying blade was worn down and so the diameter of it is smaller and you couldn't set it low enough to do any good.
Or maybe you've no thatch or moss etc so very little came off it, if this is the case you've a great lawn maybe already.

Could you see any marks in the clay from the blade?

I lowered the transport lever and adjusted the height of the blades both ways. It took a slight bit of grass off in patches, but there were no marks in the clay at any point. And I definitely don't have a great lawn unfortunately (see pic in the original post).
Thanks for your feedback, maybe I'll try and hire a scarifier from a different place.

OscarKane

A thick, lush lawn is more attractive and healthier than a thin and barely surviving patch of grass. It also improves your curb appeal. It takes hard work and dedication to get your thin lawn to grow thicker, but it can be done.

You Need to Repair Lawn:
1.Lawn mower
2.Rake
3.Grass seed
4.Seed spreader
5.Lawn roller
6.Topsoil or compost
7.Water

gsi300024v

WhatsGoingOn2 wrote: »

Hi,

My lawn is very thick, more like a field than a lawn. I can only ever cut it at the highest setting. The base of the grass is rotting in parts. What is the best way to sort this? Should I scarify or aerate it? When is a good time to do this? I really would like a nice lawn rather than a constant battle to keep it cut.



Thanks.

Ah yes this I s lawn that could do with a good rip.

Shemale

At this stage I would be inclined not to scarify it now, there won't be too many cuts left before the growth stops.Winter should account for lot of the extra grass and get the scarifier out the end of February.

I am not sure why you say the scarifying didn't work and then you threw seeds down, if the seed takes it is going to even more dense.

OscarKane

A thick, lush lawn is more attractive and healthier than a thin and barely surviving patch of grass. It also improves your curb appeal. It takes hard work and dedication to get your thin lawn to grow thicker, but it can be done. The good news is that once your lawn is thick and healthy, it takes very little work to keep it that way.