Giving up with lawn... or am I?

[uncle_rufus]

I've looked for another thread and there's not quite one that matches what I want to ask here...

This winter has been terrible for our lawn - it's your typical awful condition horribly compacted clay soil probably with rubble and all sorts under it new build situation. About 6 years old now and although we've tried pretty hard (getting the company GreenKeepers to treat it, several years of scarify + aeration + overseed + topdress) and at times it has looked to be doing a bit better this time it really is just ruined. It spent half the winter virtually under-water and now there's barely any grass left, just a few clumps, a little bit of moss in places but mostly just bare soil, looks dreadful...

I think I'm starting to wake up to the fact that I could just **** hundreds up the wall every year to re-do all of that stuff and maybe get a month or so of decent grass out of it in the summer and that's it. I thought that maybe if we kept doing that eventually the condition of the ground would improve (less compaction from the aeration, repeated top-dressing might gradually build up a layer of nicer soil for the grass, but perhaps I'm wrong? Maybe this is just an extremely bad year?)

Or maybe something else... I'm not interested in artificial grass having researched it... and not super keen on gravel or chips either, so... Has anyone had any luck with planting out low-growing ground cover type plants (weeds really) and letting them take up the slack where the grass wont? Thinking clover, creeping thyme, daisy, and stop treating it for moss, perhaps put down some slightly taller growing meadow wildflowers around the edges... I'm at a bit of a loss to be honest!

 

[BUDFORCE]

Seems like a perfect time to dig the lot up and grow potatoes.

 

[NoobCannon]

Artificial grass tbh.

new builds gardens normally suck.
Be cheaper in the long run and you wont have to worry about it again!

 

[uncle_rufus]

Artificial grass tbh.

new builds gardens normally suck.
Be cheaper in the long run and you wont have to worry about it again!

I would lie if I said I hadn't thought about it, but I've decided against it... I think it looks great but it's not good for nature, it's more plastic to be landfilled someday, I think with even less ground cover it will make the drainage problems worse rather than better... no from me dawg

 

[samcat]

Had similar problem at my old place. What we did:

Remove the turf if its worth saving.
Borrow a rotavator.
Rotavate it up/down then side to side
Realise you rotavated the virgin media cable... Ring them up and blame 'the bloody gardener' (not techincally a lie), book repair work in. Dig 1ft+ deep trench for the repaired cable.
Walk the area and pick up ALL bigish stones/rubble, get rid. Small stones are fine/normal.
Rotavate, destone and repeat. Do this a few times.
If needed remove some material, 4-5ish wheelbarrows worth is what we did (Small lawn, 4x3m) . Neighbour wanted it, easy win.
Add sharp sand and well rotted manure, spread around fairly evenly.
Rotavate it in, up/down then side to side.
Add more. Same.
Add topsoil, rake level, seed with a good quality seed. Walk it to gently compact the top. Put bird netting over. Water regularly etc. Or get it turfed.

Was a chunk of work, but for years after we consistently had the nicest lawn in the street and it needed very little maintenance. Neighbours get waterlogged/lawn dies overwinter.. Ours just survived and bounched right back.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

Builders just run their machinery all over it mix rubble in with compact it to buggery ruin the topsoil mixing it up with subsoil, assuming they simply didn't just buldoze all the subsoil out of the trenches all over it. And then cover up the entire mess by bunging a load of ropey turf on top and call it done.

If you're looking for decent lawn you really need to undo everything they've done i.e. uncompact the ground sort out any drainage improve the topsoil by getting organic matter into it, level it - and then lay some decent turf. But until you sort out the underlying problem you're simply throwing good money after bad.

 

[uncle_rufus]

I think you're both right, and I think I'm at that point where I've realised it needs more work than I have currently had done to it. I thought that several successive years of heavy duty scarifying, aerating and top-dressing would sort it out - and whilst it has definitely helped a lot (you can easily tell how much better quality the layer of topsoil that has built back up is) ultimately it's still a big hard clay pan just underneath that doesn't drain and poking holes in it once a year isn't enough...

Seems I can hire a decent petrol driven rotovator for the day for about £30 (maybe not right now, but once the virus is out of the way) so I'll give it some thought. I guess my biggest worry there is that once I free up the surface soil I find that either:

A - it was so compacted that I end up with tons of material to remove to get it back to ground level again

and/or

B - the layer of awful clay goes really deep so even after rotovating it significantly I'm not going to have done much to improve the drainage

Or is it the case that if I really churn up the top foot or so of soil and mix in a lot of manure or other organic material that will create a decent enough layer that it doesn't matter? I guess if the top foot is decent soil with good drainage then at least any water that builds up will do so below that layer - though if it still can't drain away am I not still in trouble?

 

[bazzabear]

One of our lawns I quite like the idea of turning into a 'wildflower' lawn. But I haven't the faintest idea how to go about doing it.

 

[uncle_rufus]

One of our lawns I quite like the idea of turning into a 'wildflower' lawn. But I haven't the faintest idea how to go about doing it.

I have been researching it and I think the jist of it is:

1. Stop using all the chemical stuff we put on lawns to kill everything apart from grass
2. Wait and see what happens - you'll get some moss in the shady/damp areas, and some weeds start popping up as their seeds get dropped by birds or on the breeze
3. Pull out the bigger weeds you don't want like big dandelions etc.
4. ???
5. Profit

If you want to hurry step 2 along a bit you can easily order batches of seeds for things like clover on Amazon (and they're super cheap seeing as they aren't that desirable). I like the idea of putting some more "wildflower" like seeds around the edges and try to keep the main middle area with low ground cover things like clover, daisy etc. as I'd rather not have the whole thing overgrown - still want to be able to sit out on it or kids to run around etc.

 

[bazzabear]

That just sounds like the recipe for a crap lawn rather than a wildflower lawn. I know because it's what I currently do, and it's what I currently have.
We do have an array of daisies, which I quite like.

I guess the image in my mind is of lots of colour - but that can only happen if you stop mowing altogether. So it's probably not a realistic goal.

I guess you could try to seed some flowers which are very low and fast growing, that might survive being mowed? But could you seed them on top of a lawn, or would they fail to root?

 

[Mr Jack]

One of our lawns I quite like the idea of turning into a 'wildflower' lawn. But I haven't the faintest idea how to go about doing it.

Kill whatever is there now. Dig it over. Scatter with wild flower seeds (you can buy packs online or in a store). Wait. You need to clear and refresh each year or it'll turn into a bramble patch but otherwise it doesn't need a lot of maintenance.

I've never done a large area, though, so it might be more difficult on a larger scale. We're putting one in behind our new house so I guess I'll find out soon.

edit Saw your comment about mowing. If you want normal wildflowers they grow to about 40-50cm tall. I guess you want something different to what I'm thinking of.

 

[Mr Jack]

Something more like this? https://www.wildflowerlawnsandmeadows.com/product/low-flowering-lawn-plant-plug-collection/

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Company Green keepers?
A green keeper should know that a good green starts with drainage
Hard to tell you what to do with out actually seeing it of course
Digging a test hole to see how deep the clay is would be a good idea
Aerating? Was it hollow tine aerating?
Did you put sharp sand down the aeration holes when doing it?
Yes rotavating a load of stuff into it might work or might not
That's why you want a test hole, or a few of them to see what's underneath
You wouldn't want the time, effort and cost of rotavating it just to find
It didn't help that much

 

[samcat]

I think you're both right, and I think I'm at that point where I've realised it needs more work than I have currently had done to it. I thought that several successive years of heavy duty scarifying, aerating and top-dressing would sort it out - and whilst it has definitely helped a lot (you can easily tell how much better quality the layer of topsoil that has built back up is) ultimately it's still a big hard clay pan just underneath that doesn't drain and poking holes in it once a year isn't enough...

Seems I can hire a decent petrol driven rotovator for the day for about £30 (maybe not right now, but once the virus is out of the way) so I'll give it some thought. I guess my biggest worry there is that once I free up the surface soil I find that either:

A - it was so compacted that I end up with tons of material to remove to get it back to ground level again

and/or

B - the layer of awful clay goes really deep so even after rotovating it significantly I'm not going to have done much to improve the drainage

Or is it the case that if I really churn up the top foot or so of soil and mix in a lot of manure or other organic material that will create a decent enough layer that it doesn't matter? I guess if the top foot is decent soil with good drainage then at least any water that builds up will do so below that layer - though if it still can't drain away am I not still in trouble?

Not sure on the area, but get the rotavator and have a plan for excess material. Skips are not mad money, and even a skip bag can be okay depending on volume. https://skipbag.co.uk/
If you dont want to wait for the skip, put some boards/tarp sheets down near where the skip would go and just move excess material to there. Then load into skip once it arrives (yes, your touching it twice which is not ideal).

As above, test hole is essential. Do it soon before the ground gets too dry and creates extra work.

There are always things you can do to improve drainage but the first thing you need is to understand what you are dealing with.

 

[uncle_rufus]

Cheers for the continued advice guys - I think a test-hole (or two) sounds like a good shout... Since I'm not sure how long its going to take to get to a point where I can reliably order things and services again I'd rather not take a shovel to the lawn and dig a big ugly hole but I might see if I can get a 2ft auger bit for my mains drill and use that to drill out a couple of "cores"...

I do think though that there must be some sort of reasonable soil at some depth because I know that prior to building the estate here this whole site was a farm and my garden would have been in a field (growing what exactly I don't know)

I also recall when we visited the house a few times during construction seeing that there is a rainwater pipe running diagonally across the garden, buried quite deep, connected to the downpipes coming off of the garages/houses and drainage grates on the driveways. Hopefully that doesn't mean that we're out of luck with that whole section (if they dug it right out to lay the pipe and then backfilled the whole thing with that thick nasty clay)

To answer a few other questions from above:
@Mcnumpty2323
Greenkeepers are a lawncare company I soon won't be employing anymore!
Yes hollow tine aerating, with the intention of reducing compaction
I'm not sure if they put sand in the holes, could have been some sand in the mix which they used to topdress/overseed after

@MrJack
Those look really good and that's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of (it hadn't occurred to me that you could go for planting little plugs rather than trying to seed them but it makes sense and may be easier to get good results that way)

In summary then I guess the plan is one of:

Plan A:
1. Test holes, find out how deep the clay goes
2. Consider hiring a skip + rotovator and going to town on it
3. Possibly end up with a nice "proper" lawn again

Plan B:
1. Test holes, find out the clay goes deeper than I can rotovate
2. Have a try at replacing a lot of the grass with wildflowers and other stuff

Obviously B is less effort - and technically I could try B this year while A is less feasible, and if it doesn't work go back on it and go for A... will have a think

 

[bazzabear]

Something more like this? https://www.wildflowerlawnsandmeadows.com/product/low-flowering-lawn-plant-plug-collection/

That actually sounds like a really interesting solution. I reckon my back will be complaining after planting 150 pluigs though!

 

[utajoker]

i have a new build lawn that sounds similar to what is being described in here. It hasn't died over the winter but does have some brow scattered about it and is a bit thin. the ground underneath does have rocks etc that you can feel.

Someone mentioned covering it with top soil and letting it grow through. Is this a method that can work?

 

[samcat]

i have a new build lawn that sounds similar to what is being described in here. It hasn't died over the winter but does have some brow scattered about it and is a bit thin. the ground underneath does have rocks etc that you can feel.

Someone mentioned covering it with top soil and letting it grow through. Is this a method that can work?

It can, but you will always have that crap subsoil and it will cause you problems.
Better to fix the issue. It sounds like a ton of work but if the lawn area/garden isnt huge then it isnt so bad.
Buy beers/takeaway and rope some friends in. with 3-4 of you its much much easier.

 

[uncle_rufus]

Update for you guys... have continued to do research and think about it and come to a decision, even ran it by Mrs.R and (eventually) got the green light. So weighing it up...

Rotovating & Re-turf/seed
- Hard and/or expensive work
- May be hard to get done right now given COVID-19
- Might not even work (if the clay goes too deep)
- The resulting lawn will continue to take a lot of effort
- But it will still be "the dream" of that perfect lawn

Wildflower Lawn
- Less expensive, still some hard work involved
- The site mentioned above is taking orders just fine
- In theory the resulting lawn is way less effort once established
- If it goes wrong, I can proceed with the other plan after

As well as the benefits to wildlife and that the wildflower lawn will look pretty, it actually seems like the condition of my lawn is pretty much perfect for doing this right now. Most of the initial steps to doing it start with "step 1 - weaken the existing grass, cut it really short, pull some of it up etc." - well, the winter has basically done that for me already. And you're meant to specifically avoid doing things to try and make the soil good condition - no fertilisers, no topdressing, bad soil is kind of good in this world... So my plan is this:

Step 1. Scarify the lawn now, I'll just do it with a rake - it'll get up the thatch and ready the soil...

Step 2. The above may well activate some loose/dormant weed seeds, so I'll pull those up as I see them

Step 3. Ordering 60 plant plugs from that website above, and I'll plant them in a fairly hap-hazard kind of way - I can sort of use the bare patches that have appeared as a bit of a guide to help it look natural (we're not totally removing all the grass, so we will still have some wild tufts of grass here and there)

Step 4. Also on advice of the guy from that website will order a small pack of wildflower lawn seeds and scatter them over the whole thing (just to increase the chances)

Step 5. Water well and wait, keep an eye on what comes up, pull out anything we don't like and keep what we do

Step 6. In the Autumn I'm going to get a couple hundred daffodil, crocus and tulip bulbs and plant them along all of the edges of the lawn (except for the bits that get walked through by the patio and our garden bench area)

So yeah there we go. If you like I can keep this thread updated as we go, but honestly I'm kind of excited to see how its going to turn out. The more I've thought about it the more I've started to believe that the idea of putting in so much effort (and money) to try and have this perfect grass-only lawn is kind of bizarre in the first place. Perhaps I will live to regret this decision but he who dares wins and all that - it'll be something to do! (and speaking of money, it's already going to save us cash as I think the usual scarify / aerate / top-dress that we would have had done soon anyway usually costs something like £180... the plugs, seeds and bulbs will be less than half of that)

Obligatory TL;DR - have decided to go with the wildflower lawn

 

[Mr Jack]

Nice. I am interested to see how this turns out.