Rubbish lawn - no idea?!

hi all,

My lawn is looking a bit worse for wear at the moment, and I'd like to get it all lovely in time for summer.

I have absolutely no gardening knowledge at all, so please feel free to talk to me like i'm an idiot - as I really haven't a clue what to do! I have two cats and two bunnies who use the lawn (trying to teach the cats not to use it as a toilet, they are quite old so cannot jump the fences anymore). There is already a few bald spots where the cats have weed, I don't know what to do to fix those bits? Also any treatment that I give the garden must be animal friendly.

In this picture, you can see lots of balls of mud which is all over the lawn - I have no idea what caused this or even if its normal! Maybe its caused by the bunnies poo?


Here is another picture


This is the overall state of the grass - not looking good is it! The bottom left had of the lawn never gets any sun, hence there is hardly any grass there, thinking about putting a small patio down there for the swing chair to sit on.


Anyway, I'd be very grateful for any advice you can give me to make my garden lovely again!

 

Forgot to add, can anyone give me ideas on how to keep the slate on the flower bed in place. Its meant to be a half moon shape but the cats and bunnies keep disturbing it, need some kind of border on it. But not any horrid plasticy fence etc.

 

Hi, SOG!! Think your muddy bits look like worm casts - which at least shows the soil is healthy enough to have worms!!

I think your idea of putting down paving for the swing is a good idea - making a virtue of necessity :D

For the rest - it looks like it's badly compacted, so you need to improve the drainage. The good news is that now is a good time to do that! Get a garden fork, and use it to make holes in the grass, the depth of the fork. Go over the whole area, up and down, up and down, until the whole area of grass has lots of little holes, then brush in sharp sand or top dressing, which you can get at a GC or B+Q, or anywhere like that. That should help a lot. Then get a spring-tined rake, the ones that are shaped like a fan, and scratch the surface with that - all good exercise!! Then re-seed the bare patches.

All of this should cause no problems at all to pets! :D (So long as you don't accidentally spear the odd tail with your fork in your enthusiasm, that is...... :rolleyes:

Re keeping the slate off your grass, how about getting some larger pebbles or stones to mark the edge? That would look quite natural, and would be effective.

 

I agree with Dendy's suggestions. For your other problem give your kitties a soft area to use for their loo eg a soil tray, sand tray etc. Cut out the bit they've killed and resow the grass. Now is a good time for growing grass, especially if rain is forcast. Bunny might make the lawn bald by eating the grass, I know mine does but it looks like you have plenty to go at

 

Thanks for your advice guys!

Yesterday I raked the moss out with the fan shaped rake - there is tonnes of moss in the lawn! Then I used a fork to make holes in, tried to push it in as far as poss, but there is so much builders rubble in our garden (it took us 3 atempts to put our washing line spike in!) so I've tried as best as poss. When I was spiking LOADS of worms were coming out of the ground! I take it thats a good sign?!

I've only managed to do a quarter of the garden (looks a right mess!). Will try to do some more today, and the rest of the week til its done.

i estimate that the lawn is approx 26feet x 13feet, so how much sharp sand/top dressing would i need, can I get it in a car?

I'm defo going to re-seed bits of it, what kind of seed do I need?

Do I need to do anything else for the seed to take, we don't get many birds in the garden (cats!) so don't think I will need to protect it? Can I still let the buns run around the lawn, they don't make much damage I don't think and do eat the grass, not lots of it, I'm hoping that the buns would make me need not to mow it again! Lol!

Sorry for the questions, but I'm a complete novice! Any advice would be grately appreciated!

 

I'd get a hard wearing grass seed, I think it has lots of rye in it, that should cope with cats, rabbits and children. It will grow faster but your organic lawnmowers will help with that :D

 

I just did mine (15x15 ft) and it took half a B&Q 'large bag' of sharp sand. I didn't brush it in though, just chucked it down and hoped the worms would be my friends.
I found this seed which I'm going to try. Our main problems are cat pee and shade, we think, so this might help.

 

This is another very useful site, which gives you some ideas of what you might need for your particular problems and requirements, Nicky's seeds

 

Well after nearly 2 months, this is what our garden looks like now!

The grass is almost recovered, need to reseed in a few places and cut and re-seed where the path used to be!

Just to re-cap, this is what it looked before:


This is in-between (all the moss raked out, hardly any grass left!)


And what it looks like now:


The light bit in the middle is where I let the grass grow too long before I cut it, so just need to let it recover a bit!

But it looks wonderful now, like a lush green carpet, thank you so much for your advice! :D

[ 11. July 2007, 12:15 PM: Message edited by: Small orange giraffe ]