Green fingers

[Sonic]

Help! I have the opposite of green fingers, let's call them fingers of death. But I need to lay new turf for my boys to play on and I wanna do it right! Does anyone have any advice/tips so I can avoid the brown, dying grass I fear.

[GridGirl]

The turf on my new house was laid last December and both the front lawn and read garden has grass that is green with patches of brown. Actually it might be the other way round. :s We are cutting is a regular as possible to try and make it green and we're thinking about buying some grass feed this week to try and help it along. Other than that I have no idea, but I'll be quite interested in any responses to help my own garden.

Are you laying turf or sowing grass seed? Thats mightmake some difference to the replies you get.

[Easy Drifter]

Buy artrificial!!
Seriously get your turf direct from a turf farm if you can. At many garden centres it may have been sitting for days and despite being rolled up can get dried out.
Water heavily especially for the first few days.
Prepare the soil before laying. If you have clay you may have to get a load of topsoil. Same if your soil is too sandy. The grass has to be able to root below the amount of soil that comes with it.
Keep the kids off of it until it has a chance to really root.
Ask the supplier about feeding it and for any other advice.
The truck drivers who deliver it probably do not know much.
Lay it as soon after delivery as you can. The sooner the better.
If it has to sit rolled up keep it damp.
Former Garden Centre owner.

[Easy Drifter]

Grid Girl. Do not cut it too short. Let it grow a bit. Probably more watering is required. Grass is pretty tough. The soil under the turf could be a problem.
A good grass feed/fertilizer will help. Do not over fertilize or you will burn the grass and use one the is formulated for grass.
If you are in a new house the builder probably just threw the sod down on whatever soil was there including the poor stuff from the excavation. Any rocks were just left and sodded over.

[Sonic]

Buy artrificial!!
Seriously get your turf direct from a turf farm if you can. At many garden centres it may have been sitting for days and despite being rolled up can get dried out.
Water heavily especially for the first few days.
Prepare the soil before laying. If you have clay you may have to get a load of topsoil. Same if your soil is too sandy. The grass has to be able to root below the amount of soil that comes with it.
Keep the kids off of it until it has a chance to really root.
Ask the supplier about feeding it and for any other advice.
The truck drivers who deliver it probably do not know much.
Lay it as soon after delivery as you can. The sooner the better.
If it has to sit rolled up keep it damp.
Former Garden Centre owner.

Looks like your my man then drifter! I've dug out the weeds and got the land level - what else do I do before turfing? I have quite chalky soil....

[Bob Riebe]

Help! I have the opposite of green fingers, let's call them fingers of death. But I need to lay new turf for my boys to play on and I wanna do it right! Does anyone have any advice/tips so I can avoid the brown, dying grass I fear.
How big is the area?
How hard is the soil now?

If the area is smaller get some bagged, or if you have a trailer, a trailer load of compost/manure and roto-till it in.

The harder the base, the harder a time the roots will have to penetrate the soil and will grow side-ways verses down.
I landscaped for some years and often people would water too much with sod and the sod would die without continual watering as the roots never penetrated the soil under the sod.
If you sod, grab the end of a roll after a week or so. look under it and if you see all kinds of roots, but none grabbing the soil you have either over watered or the soil was so hard neither the roots or water penetrated to a decent degree.

If you lay sod, run a roller over it after you are done and it will look better, much better, plus that helps close gaps that weeds seem to find very quickly.

If you see, BE SURE, you get a seed that is tough enough tjo survive heavy traffic and survive low water periods after being established.
If you seed, it is better if you roto-till it, than roll over it with a roller after raking it semi-level; seeding it; then roll over the seed.

[GridGirl]

Grid Girl. Do not cut it too short. Let it grow a bit. Probably more watering is required. Grass is pretty tough. The soil under the turf could be a problem.
A good grass feed/fertilizer will help. Do not over fertilize or you will burn the grass and use one the is formulated for grass.
If you are in a new house the builder probably just threw the sod down on whatever soil was there including the poor stuff from the excavation. Any rocks were just left and sodded over.

We're cutting the grass once a week. It's more brown in colour after being cut. Yeah my house is a new build house, hense the lawn being laid in December. If I hadn't got it as a free extra I would have waited to lay or sew it at a better time of year. I don't think it helped that for the first few months after it was put down it was either sodden from rain or under snow. I'm not sure about the soil underneath but from looking at houses that are currently being built the builder does put a layer of topsoil down. I really didn't think there was that much to growing grass but I'm obviously wrong. :)

[Mark in Oshawa]

I thought like you did Grid Girl...how tough is it to grow grass? Stupid me....lol...I had weeds and crap for a while.

I am all for the gravel yard like people have in Nevada and Arizona....I can kill grass just as easy as looking at it....

[Sonic]

How big is the area?
How hard is the soil now?

If the area is smaller get some bagged, or if you have a trailer, a trailer load of compost/manure and roto-till it in.

The harder the base, the harder a time the roots will have to penetrate the soil and will grow side-ways verses down.
I landscaped for some years and often people would water too much with sod and the sod would die without continual watering as the roots never penetrated the soil under the sod.
If you sod, grab the end of a roll after a week or so. look under it and if you see all kinds of roots, but none grabbing the soil you have either over watered or the soil was so hard neither the roots or water penetrated to a decent degree.

If you lay sod, run a roller over it after you are done and it will look better, much better, plus that helps close gaps that weeds seem to find very quickly.

If you see, BE SURE, you get a seed that is tough enough tjo survive heavy traffic and survive low water periods after being established.
If you seed, it is better if you roto-till it, than roll over it with a roller after raking it semi-level; seeding it; then roll over the seed.

Thanks for the advice! The area is about 100ft sq and the soil is.....errrm.....was bone dry on top but after turning it over is pretty moist.

Stupid question (I'll have lots) do I worry about stones?

[Bob Riebe]

Thanks for the advice! The area is about 100ft sq and the soil is.....errrm.....was bone dry on top but after turning it over is pretty moist.

Stupid question (I'll have lots) do I worry about stones?
They are annoying with seed, but can actually prevent the bottom of sod from contacting the ground to the point of brown spots.
When we seeded, we first picked then raked the area with a rake that had a large straight edge on one side and heavy duty short tines on the other. It is the same type of rake used by those who lay asphalt. About three feet wide, far, far more useful than a garden rake.

You can buy stone forks that allow dirt to fall but not the stones, but you still MUST rake the area well.
If you can roto-till the area it will be much easier, but you must recompact the area or you sink in after watering.

[Easy Drifter]

Bob is giving very good advice.

[Dave B]

Seriously get your turf direct from a turf farm if you can. At many garden centres it may have been sitting for days and despite being rolled up can get dried out.
Good advice. I bought some turf from B&Q and it was crap, even though it was a fresh delivery. It was paper-thin, and died within a few weeks despite really good care. Luckily I only required a few.

Last year I re-laid the entire lawn and ordered turf from a dedicated supplier. It was actually slightly cheaper than the superstore, with the added bonus of being delivered rather than making my car filthy. The delivery came at 10am, it turns out that 4 hours earlier it was still growing down near Hastings! The turfs were far thicker than the old ones (and bloody heavy!), but they laid a treat and a year on look great even with the dog's bodily fluids doing their best to ruin them.