Grass advice

After a long wet and mild winter where my grass has been growing pretty much unchecked, I now want to try and get it back into some sort of order. Now, I have a few problems and a few ideas to resolve them, but I don't know which order to do them in and what else I should be doing. I gave the grass its first cut at the weekend which was a relatively high cut as it was simply too long and wet to cut any lower. I has dried out quite nicely, and I should be able to cut it shorter next time round.

Now, I think I need to do the following:

- Cut to shorter length
- Apply weed & feed (Evergreen 4-in-1)
- Scarify
- Aerate with my garden fork
- Overseed by sprinkling the Westland Growsure Fast Acting Grass Seed that I bought yesterday.

Now, I also have a bit of a dilemma going; on the shady side of the garden toward the back, there is an area where my daughter's trampoline sits, and there is next to no grass left there at all now - moss, yes, but not grass. Now, do I try and reseed it and see if I can get grass growing there again, or do I dig it up and get some turf to lay, or would I be better to accept that no grass is going to ever grow under the trampoline and instead lay membrane and bark chippings just to tidy things up (I would need to get landlord approval for this, but not likely to be an issue)

 

Thanks @Sheal - I cut (well, chewed - see my lawnmower woes here) and then got my scarifier out.

The end result:





Did I do too much too soon?

Would it be worth overseeding sometime soon to try and mitigate, or should I still leave that until after the weed and feed is applied?

 

I got on quite well with the Evergreen last year to be fair @clueless1 - my problem was that I never kept up the lawn generally.

The scarifier seems to have loosened the top surface of the soil somewhat too, which can surely only help?

@Sheal - thank you I'm just heading off to order a Bosch.

 

Nah, I was between the devil and the deep blue sea with the choice between the two; Bosch is a good brand, and when I was looking last year I seem to remember others recommending the Rotak machines. I've just ordered the Rotak 40, which should be here within the next week or so - - had a voucher to use, so got it for £98, so can't be bad. 2-year warranty too.

 

Will do - of course, that is assuming that I haven't completely killed my grass, and actually have something to mow

 

Thought I had better update this thread both for the lawn mower review and the progress on the lawn.

I ended up with the Bosch Rotak 40, which I brought home on Saturday - - the difference was immediately apparent, and left me wondering what on earth I have been battling with for the past couple of years. I breezed through the grass cutting, with no sticking or stalling, and it collected all of the cuttings; without doubt, this is the best lawn mower I have ever used.

On to the lawn - after saving shed loads of time thanks to the new mower, I decided to crack on and aerate the lawn as the ground under it was completely solid, and there were bare patches everywhere. I started off by sticking the garden fork in at intervals of about three to four inches, and gave the fork a good wiggle, lifting the sod up slightly. I followed this by scattering compost quite liberally across the surface of the lawn (used about 120 litres approx), then I overseeded with Westland Grow Sure Sure Start grass seed, rolled it in using the roller on the back of the new lawn mower to firm the seeds in a wee bit, before sprinkling handfuls of chicken manure pellets across the entire lawn, and then turned the sprinkler on and let it do its thing.

Its early days yet, but I don't seem to have been plagued by as many birds nicking the seed this time, and a few days on it appears that the compost is less noticeable now which I take to mean that the grass is growing up through it and its getting incorporated into the lawn.

I suppose time will tell?

 

Well, I think things are going in the right direction. but it is still very patchy. A lot of the seed seems to have disappeared courtesy of the local bird population, so I am considering having another bash and mixing the seed with something like sharp sand?

Not sure whether I should mow it again first, or even weed'n'feed it and then mow it a week or so later and then re-seed once more?