Turf SOS

Good morning fellow gardeners,

I am turning to yourselves for any assistance you may have. I am an extremely novice gardener and thought I would begin my journey with laying some turf. This turf was purchased by myself, along with the soil and laid by a landscaper.

Anyway. Nearly a year on from the turf being laid, this now looks like it has had a bad case of alopecia. In order to rectify this, I have sowed some fresh seed, given a coat of grass food, covered with topsoil and given it a good watering.

If anyone has any advice I would be most grateful. Photograph of lawn when in prime and now (after fresh seeding).

 

Oh my !!!!

have you got kids or pets been running around on the lawn over the autumn and winter ?

does your garden get water logged ?

how long did it stay looking good ? before it turned into you now photo ?

Its too early to plant grass seed it needs to be warmer , even feeding is a tad early as well I normally leave till April but thats not far away ...



Spruce

 

Thanks @Spruce for the quick reply.

Yes this is indeed a sorry sight! I have 1 dog but she does not toilet on the grass, we always take her to Community grass for toileting.

In the beginning, drainage was perfect, no puddles. As time went on, I have noticed whenever there is a significant amount of rainfall, the soil is sodden!

It stayed looking great until I would say November 2021. Turf was laid in the March, got a good Summer out of it and then Winter hit.

I thought it might have been a tad cold, will hold off until April and see what the temp does.

Thanks!

 

its a drainage problem the lawn is is getting waterlogged and not draining quickly enough and as you can see thats the result ..

Sorry to say your just wasting money with seed and feed ,, you have to go back to basics and start from scratch ,,, double digging and breaking up the sub soil and now is a good time of year to start ..

when the lawn was laid waht prep work was done ...

do your neighbours have the same problem

I am not one for artificial grass but since you have a postage stamp of lawn it may be the best alternative in this case

 

I suspected this may be the case. Before we laid the turf, there were stones in place - I wonder why...

Honesty is best policy and I appreciate the advice. My wife and I are now considering paving slabs and having plant pots about the garden.

As for prep work, the stones were removed down to the weed sheet (which I believe may still be in place). That's all that was done really.

Neighbours have similar issue at one end of the garden - I should have listened. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Artificial was another consideration, will need to have a think and will update on progress.

Thanks for the help!

 

we all make mistakes could of been a lot worse ...

yee be interesting to see what you decide at least artificial grass gives it some green lol

Spruce

 

So...I have made some progress - small progress but I suppose anything was better than the previous swamp. The soil has been removed and I have now discovered as to why the water logging was occurring.

Prior to the turf being laid, stones were in place. Whoever installed the stones had laid it as such:

Layer 5 - Stones
Layer 4 - Anti Weed Sheet
Layer 3 - Soil
Layer 2 - Small layer of cement
Layer 1 - Sand

In order to make life easier for ourselves, we are going to put down slabs. Will update once completed.