Please help fix my lawn :-/

Hello all. We recently bought our house back in December and inherited a lovely garden. On closer inspection I noticed allot of moss and set about trying to remove it all. There began my problems... The patches of bare soil left needed seeding so I set off to B&Q and asked for a fine leaf seed, I liked it to a slightly more hardy lawn than a bowling green. I sewed the seed, the grass grew and grew and grew.. Basically I'm left with really fast growing thick leaf patches of grass next to almost bowling green type grass lawn. I've totally messed up a lovely lawn. I should of left it alone and enjoyed the extra bounce the moss gave. So to sum up, how can I now get a uniform finish to the lawn and re-establish the moss please ?

 

Hi JWK, thanks I'm just buying the fertiliser now. Trouble is I now have two grass types on the lawn. I'd like it to all be the same. The staff at b&q told me the grass seed I needed was the miracle grow seed with coir. But that grass is a broad leaf heavy duty type grass. How will I now get rid of that and where to buy the correct seed to match what's established already please?

 

Can anyone offer a solution please?

 

You can pretty much never match the previous grass unless you know what was sown. It could be fescue, bentgrass or bluegrass. Which one though, strong/slender/hard/sheep, bent/colonial, rough/smooth. Plus there are hundreds of cultivars of each grass type. So forget about matching your original grass.

Having a mixture of grass is not a bad thing. You also most likely had a blend of grass in your lawn already anyway. Plus it seems like you cut your grass too low.

And stop buying seed from bnq. Buy seed from a supplier, there are fine and low growing varieties but they are hard work to maintain.

You probably bought something with ryegrass which is tough and dark green and grows faster than the fine grass you already had in your lawn.

Do not worry too much about it. Wait a month, de thatch/aerate the lawn and reseed+fertilise the whole area with any type of seed you want. Job jobbed.

 

Thanks Mosamahab. The ryegrass is just too different for me. Damn b&q... You live and learn. The pictures may help identify the smaller grass maybe? I figured I should kill the ryegrass with a weedkiller and rake back to turf and then re-seed, what do you think please?
What seed do you recommend to compliment the original grass and should I aerate removing plugs or just attack it with a fork please? Sorry for all the questions

 

First picture looks like fescue. Second picture is definitely ryegrass.

I can't really identify grass from pictures that well though. There are other people here who might be able to tell you.

Yeah you can kill the patch of rye with glyphosate. Let it die, rake and the reseed with finer fescue grass. Check out boston seeds (there are other websites). Even ebay has some decent sellers. If you don't want ryegrass, then find a mixture without it.

Your patch is never going to match your original grass. The reason is explained in the first post.

If you have moss problem, then scarifying itself will stress the lawn out. You can core aerate or tine aerator. That is your choice, and dependant on how much compacted is your soil.

I always recommend people go have a look at Zola's threads when they want to scarify and aerate.

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/can-i-scarify-again.102884/
http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/2016-lawn-strategy.112783/

 

Many thanks, you've been a great help!

 

Ok, so I scarified it to bare soil, where there was good grass I took as much thatch as i could out. I then aireated with a fork, no more than a foot between holes and more where it was compacted. I then raked lightly, seeded using a tennis lawn mix from boston seeds. I then mixed 1 third sharp sand with 2 thirds decent topsoil. And spread it over first the bald spots and a lighter covering over the origanal lawn. So my question now is, do I now fertalise and how often should I water it with a hose please ? I put a bit of compost on bits I missed this afternoon and soaked it with the hose, hence the dark patches

 

Grass seed will need watering everyday. Preferably early morning or when it is cooler otherwise its just wasting water because it will evaporate fast.

Germination rates vary on the grass type, rye 5-10, fescue 7-15, bluegrass 21-30. etc.

You don't have to fertilise, the topsoil you have added should have plenty of nutrients.

I hope the mixture you bought has no rye in it. Because tennis lawns are predominantly double and even triple rye because it is a wear resistant sports grass.

 

The guy I spoke to at Boston Seeds explained that there are as many rye grass types as there are tomatoes and told me what I was getting was a rye grass mix and " if I was to ressed my lawn, this is what I would use" So .. I took him at his word.. Just went to look if I still had the tag off the bag but I binned it as i opened the bag yesterday : /

 

If you read my first post, I said there was nothing wrong with rye. But you did not want any ryegrass in your lawn. That is the only reason I mentioned it.

But you are already aware that the mixture you bought does have rye so If you are happy with the mixture you bought then all is good.

I have a mixture of various ryegrass, fescue, bent and bluegrass. I bought grass seed from ebay as it was the cheapest at £3/kg.

 

@Sam Laycock - Fine lawns are magnificent but a lot higher maintenance than utility grade lawns. Any weed grasses that appear look very unsightly and they are more prone to weed infestations.

Ryegrass strains have come a long way since the days when it had a certain notoriety. Boston seeds are experts at suggesting the right kind of grass mixtures.

All I would add is that it's best to gently rake the seed into the soil or existing grass and spread a layer of loam or topsoil over the top. Raking in helps prevent pesky pidgeons from devouring the seeds but put up some makeshift scarecrows i.e. bamboo canes with plastic bags or foil flags to keep 'em away.

Also, worms like topsoil and will pull it down, exposing the seed, which will dry out in the sun, often sending it to oblivion, therefore regular topping up of soil/loam may be required as watering the grass seeds to enable them to germinate also opens a portwhole for worms to gorge on the nutrients that topsoil/loam provides.

 

Ok, thanks everyone for your help. I messed up... again, should use this thread as an example of what NOT to do when trying to re-establish a lawn .. So I watched my lawn recover, the new seed began to show in just 5 days, looked great, so i left it a week, covererd the bits I had missed with seed, topped with compost as it was all I had left. Then rolled it and thought it wouldnt hurt to pop a little fertiliser on .... grass seed comes out of a push spreader allot slower than fertiliser, I put way to much down, killed my garden. With the recent rain its just a huge brown muddy mess, with the odd mohican strip of beautifull lush green grass, where I had missed a bit. I used to farm and fertilised with nitrates by the tonne, I should of known better ... My question now is, do I still have time to repair this year and will the fertiliser of killed the seed i put down just before i fertilised please ?

 

There are fertilizers (usually potassium-based) that help seedling grass get established but it seems nitrogen-based products can kills new grass.

Nitrogen can promote top growth at the expense of root establishment. As your grass hasn't had enough time to establish deep enough roots, it may have met an untimely demise. I would never feed grass with a general fertilizer until it's at least 6 weeks old.

But having said the above, seriously wet ground may cause roots to rot.. but it should wash the nitrogen deeper into the soil.

The soil temperatures will still be high enough for a few weeks to enable most grass types to germinate so I would advise re-seeeding ASAP and let it get a to a reasonable height, maybe 2 to 3 inches. Once it's a nice green swarth again, go easy on the mowing and and never cut more than a third off the grass length at a time. New grass grows incredibly fast so may need trimming at least a couple of times a week up until late Autumn, however don't cut it when frost is present or due.

Also, don't fertilze until next spring. Even the starter fertilizers contain nitrogen and that's probably the last thing you need right now.