Lawn

I have a really small lawn, and a great deal of trouble growing it. The weeds are thriving and there are a lot of bald patches and I just don't know what to do. I have tried re-seeding, de-weeding and have been advised to re-lay. I am quite happy to do the later, but don't have much money, and don't wish to do this if the problem isn't cured. Could there be something wrong with the earth?

 

I would tend to go with relaying with turf for a very small lawn - but the key will be preparation. My lawn is not perfect, and has weeds but close cutting, weeding/feeding and aeration keeps if sort of like a lawn. With a smaller patch and a major weed problem, like daisies, clover and dandelion - I would apply round up to the whole area now - kill the lot til you have just yellow in a couple of weeks. Remove the whole of the top and dispose (don't compost). Prepare the soil well and then lay with some very good quality turf. Cost would equal round up and turf, and some blisters <gg>

The weed sees will still be there - but it'll give you the chance to keep things under control

 

Have you lived there long? It's always worth looking at the history of the plot to see if anything might have contaminated the soil. I've dealt with similar areas before, only to find that there used to be a diesel tank or something similar on the lawn, and the spillage contaminated the soil. If not, I'd go with relaying.

To keep the cost down, you could also try re-seeding - as long as the lawn is small enough that you can keep it watered you'll get very quick germination and establishment in the summer.

That would leave you with a weed problem, because as Fran says, there would still be weed seeds in the soil, and they will have access to light, which they wouldn't if you turfed over the top.

One way to fix this is to spray the existing lawn off, cultivate it, and allow it to go "fallow" for a while - this means letting all the weed seeds germinate, and then spraying them off again after two or three weeks.

This would mean that you'd actually be seeding in June, which is perfect - as long as you can keep watering.

If your lawn takes a lot of heavy wear, go for a Dwarf Ryegrass mix. If it's shaded, try a fescue mix - it'll cope better with shade, although it's still not impervious.

It's worth remembering that even top quality turf will have some weed seeds in it. There are also issues with laying turf on top of a poor existing soil - grass roots go where they can find food, water and nutrients, so if your existing soil is very poor, they might simply stay in the half inch of rootzone meterial that the turf was grown in.

If you decide to go for the seed option, let me know and I'll point you in the direction of a watering hose that gives a very fine spray instead of a sprinkler, which can often wash the seed away.

 

Thank you both for your replies. I will 'kill off' what I have, then re-lay.
The soil beneath was clay, but I did add a lot of topsoil before I laid the grass. Do I need to treat the earth before I lay the turf? Also have of this little lawn will be in shade, what's a fescue mix?

 

There isn't much you can do to 'treat' a soil before you lay turf, but you might want to apply some pre-seed fertiliser to the soil before you actually lay the turf - this makes sure that the nutrients move down into the native soil, as opposed to sitting in the half inch of soil that the turf was grown in, and will help rooting.

Fescues are grasses which tend to be more resilient to shade, and also require less fertiliser (generally). They are fine leaved grasses whose leaves look rolled - almost like a piece of wire. They aren't totally shade resistant, and you'll also want some other species in there like bent or dwarf rye (even some meadow grass species are desirable) - this means that if one of the species suffers from disease or for some reason doesn't like your native soil, one of the others will probably do OK.