Chipperheads guide to lawn renovation.

HamZilla said:
Good work.

All it needs now are these :o
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:D
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lol seen this and thought of my street .... at the end there is a sign saying no playing and then 10m down the road there is another sign saying caution children playing will post a pic tommorow lol
 
busman said:
This thread inspired me to actually do something about the sorry state my lawn is in.

Below is a picture of the work in progress :

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The section of lawn in the middle of the grass has escaped the scarifier until tomorrow, bbq and beer took priority.

chipperhead I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction for my next job? I was planning on aerating the lawn next but im not sure if I can do this straight away or do I have to leave it for a bit?
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Leave it 2 weeks minimum after scarifying before you aerate as after scarifying the lawn will be thinned out and needs time recover.
To be honest June, July and August isn't really the time to be scarifying as it's too hot and dry, it's better done in April, May or September so if you do scarify make sure you water it well so the grass can recover.

To scarify cut the grass as short as you can before hand or even the day before. Make sure the grass is dry, you can drag a wide brush over the lawn in the morning, this will knock the dew off the grass helping it dry quicker.
Scarify the grass from several angles so go over it one way then again at right angles to the way you've just gone, I just keep going untill not much is coming up.

With my type of scarifier I take off the front collector as it fills up extremely quickly and use a rotary mower over the area to collect the dead grass and thatch as I go.
Ideally after this I'd get some fertilizer into the lawn to help the grass after the stress of scarifying and to promote grass growth rather than weeds or moss.

Regarding aerating, this can be done at anytime although if the ground is dry you'll struggle to get the tines in so I'd wait till untill after a good down pour or watering.
If you need any other advice feel free :)
 
That looks great. I've used a scarifier a few times which isn't hard work and gets a lot of the crap out. Never seen a Aerator before though.
 
CAN YOU FACE THE SCARIFIER?!! Sounds like a theme park ride...

I did a bit of gardening the other day, I lived in this house for a year and never touched the garden so it became a forest of weeds. I have no garden tools so I set at it with just my bare hands and ripped the whole garden up. N ow it needs suppressing and to get a fresh start.
 
I got myself a scarifier not too long ago but after using it for about 20 minutes I realised it was going to take me days to finish the job. I think I have a similar scarifier to the one you're using and yes, it does fill up far too quickly. In fact I found that the collection bin at the front is not only too small but also at such an angle that anything that does go into it just slides back down into the tines again meaning that after about 5m I have to stop and empty it which is a real nuisance.

chipperhead said:
With my type of scarifier I take off the front collector as it fills up extremely quickly and use a rotary mower over the area to collect the dead grass and thatch as I go.
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I'm going to have to try this when the weather cools down a bit as it's the only thing left to do really, I do all the other stuff already but it's not enough.

Good post, thanks.

Edit: Just out of interest, how do you go about your levelling?
 
lawn looking fantastic, I think I will have to do all of this to my lawn. Am I better of waiting for the autumn before I start with all of this though?
 
Looks good! I seriously doubt i could ever get my grass to look like that due to the whacking great trees that seem to bloke an awful lot of sun out of the bottom half of the garden. Any recommendations for that? I cant pull the trees down as they arent in my part of the garden.
 
Mat said:
Edit: Just out of interest, how do you go about your levelling?
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Firstly I distributed some top dressing over the lawn then I used an aluminium ladder, tied some rope to both ends and dragged it across the grass. Before I have used a large brush and just done it by eye.

daz.wallace said:
Am I better of waiting for the autumn before I start with all of this though?
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Now is a good time for fertilizer, weed killer and aeration, I'd wait for autumn to scarify.

leaskovski said:
Any recommendations for that? I cant pull the trees down as they arent in my part of the garden.
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Difficult really, prune the overhanging branches, is the ground damp and mossy that's in the shade?
If so try a moss killer containing Iron Sulfate, scarify to remove the moss, aerate to improve air circulation and you may need to overseed your lawn to encourage the grass to grow.
 
Well I finally started :)

Scarified at the weekend and have been slowly aerating the lawn over the last few days. No fancy machine for me unfortunately so have had to do it the hard way.

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^ My helper :)

Ill update as I go, so much work already so im not going to quit this time.
 
Wow holy thread revival Batman.

Yeah, now's a great time to be starting your 2012 lawn maintenance, I'll get some pictures up tomorrow of my lawn.
In 2010 I built an extension and laid a patio so decided at the same time to kill my lawn, rotovate it and start again.
It's not looking as good as it was at the but I'll get it something like by summer, at the moment I'm concentrating on the rest of the garden.
 
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