Neglected garden - leave grass cuttings or not?

JuliusCaesar

I've been chopping back the grass on a neglected garden - the grass would have been about knee high. It's very clumpy and has mossy spots in places, and is also dug up where I've been digging out the brambles left after round-upping them some weeks ago. The ground is also very uneven.

The plan is to re-sow it in spring, after digging out any more brambles that will inevitably come up.

In the meantime, should I rake away the fallen grass stems, or should I just leave them there for the winter, to rot away?

Thanks for any advice.

Harry Palmr

I'd be inclined to shake whatever soil is in the clumps and clear the grass and indeed everything else. If left it will act as a damp cover over the winter and add unneeded moisture to the soil itself.

Is the ground uneven as in undulating/sloping or just rough up and down due to the digging out? Getting it level is a good job for this time of year as the soil is yielding but shouldn't be heavy unless drainage is poor.

my3cents

I'd be inclined to rake them off. Any that don't rot will be a pain next spring when you come to level it all up.

exaisle

Depending on size, if you could get a rotovator at it, I'd give it a thorough rotovating now and do it again in the spring when you can rake out any stones/rocks and anything else the rotovator doesn't break up..prior to levelling and reseeding...

magicbastarder

if the fallen grass is thick enough to smother the grass underneath, i'd definitely rake it up.

JuliusCaesar

I’d rotovate except for the blinkin’ brambles... I’m afraid the tiny bits of root would then shoot up into a million more brambles. It’s not my own garden, it’s my friend’s who works long hours (and has little interest) so I’m only here every 6/8 weeks. I enjoy it as my own garden is tiny :-)
The lumps are due to clumps of grass, any hills, and general neglect over years.

The soil is clay and a bugger to dig, this is the first time I’ve been here that it’s actually ok to dig.

Thanks everyone, I’m clearing the cut grass to see what’s left - at least I can begin to see what bits I left out... attacking it with shears again today once the dew is gone.

my3cents

In an area thats well rotovated you won't get many if any brambles coming back up from old bits of chopped up root. Brambles propagate from seed and runners where the tips of stems root where they hit touch the ground.

Lumen

If it's a heavy clay soil I wouldn't rotovate it, you might end up compacting and making drainage worse. Just fill in any holes with topsoil.

my3cents

This time of year the traditional (as in a lot of hard work) way to tackle heavy clay is to very roughly dig it leaving it in lumps then to lime heavily and leave over winter for the frost to work on it.

inquiring

What are the thoughts on amending heavy clay with gypsum (or flower of Sulphur) instead of lime?

my3cents

The word here is "flocculation". What the lime is doing is providing a nucleus for particles of clay as the weather breaks them down to stick to the process is called flocculation. Now that sounds like it won't help much because the clay being sticky is part of the problem but in fact what happens is you end up with lots of small bits of clay rather than one big lump. Of course timing is everything and working the broken down clay when the conditions are good is part of the process.

Gypsum afaik has the same effect and I suspect you might use flowers of Sulphur if you wanted to make the soil acidic for say rhododendrons rather and alkaline which but gypsum and lime would do.

Lumen

inquiring wrote: »

What are the thoughts on amending heavy clay with gypsum (or flower of Sulphur) instead of lime?

The problem as I see it with gypsum or lime is that they're both water soluble and so will eventually get washed out, whereas adding organic matter is more likely to cause a permanent improvement in soil structure.

I had good results in my heavy clay veggie beds this year from adding rotted manure and (I think) compost.

My lawn doesn't suffer from drainage problems despite the clay, which leads me to believe that drainage problems in lawns laid on clay is more likely to be caused by some other factor. Although the site is sloping so maybe that helps the drainage.