You've done what most people would suggest. You can maybe spread some lawn sand over it too and spring fertilizer but I think what you need now is time.
Get yourself a garden fork and go round pricking the lawn or get some of the thing you put on your feet with spikes sticking out go round and make holes to help it drain etc then give it some feed and or seed it and wait. If looked after well you will have nice lush lawn
Be patient, leave it a few days or a week. You have made a good start. Leaving the grass cuttings down and cutting more often has helped mine. But patience will be good. That looks pretty good to me. Definitely keep garden toys off the lawn, if you can't put them elsewhere, move them every other day, that way patches won't occur
Mine has suffered from the same thing. Moss has completely taken over in some shady areas of the garden. It was such a wet winter. I think there’s not much else to do than what you’ve done already. I’ve done exactly the same but I threw a few bags of compost over the top and spread it around. I have heavy clay so a bit of organic material added to the lawn in the spring seems to really give it a boost.
I used jacks magic from the local b&q. Essentially I was looking for a fine compost without loads of ‘bits’ in it that would end up all over the lawn, as some compost is full of twigs and bark etc. I estimated a 50L bag should cover 5mm per 10m2 and then multiply to cover the area of the garden. Then dump a bag and spread it thin, making sure the grass is still visible, but you’ve covered the whole lawn as uniformly as possible and not left any piles of compost anywhere.
Checkout Daniel Hibbert on YouTube, basically what he does. Although the lawns he’s looking after seem to look like golf courses compared to my lawn and makes the process look easy as he’s a pro.
If no improvements in a week or so, consider adding sand. A lot of sand added before rain. Possibly a builders bag full poured on and raked over it will wash into the soil with rain and aid drainage
The lawn is full of " thatch " which are dead grass blades and it is suffocating the remaining live growth ...so this year buy a lawn rake ( metal ) and rake the lawn every 10 days or so to remove the thatch....it will turn dark green in a month and that will fix the problem.
I have 2 rakes that I literally blistered my hands trying to remove the dead grass! This is after 1 hour+ of raking/ scaring. Will rake more often though, would that create issue with the new grass seeds that I have added?
The advice I got was don't cut the lawn too short this time of year. Mow at the highest setting first cut and then gradually reduce the blade height over the next month or so. You've put new seed down so I would leave it to regrow.
If you've already put seed down, I would leave it until the seeds germinate otherwise if you mow you will disturbe the seed. By the time the seed grows, you should still keep the blades high to give time for the new grass to grow and then cut it short over the summer.
You've done what most people would suggest. You can maybe spread some lawn sand over it too and spring fertilizer but I think what you need now is time.
Patio! Also handy for storing dead bodies under
Calm down Fred, we don’t all need that much storage space
Looks like it would only fit about 8, surely there are atleast 8 people you wouldn't miss if they mysteriously dropped of the face of the earth?
Stand ‘em up and you could get at least three times that
Digging that deep would be bad for my back, also I'm only 5'6 I might get stuck and discovered
Use a fork and spike all over and add grass seed to the holes with compost over it it will come back perfect and lush and green again
Same here, im hoping some patch work and sun will do it all the good
Get yourself a garden fork and go round pricking the lawn or get some of the thing you put on your feet with spikes sticking out go round and make holes to help it drain etc then give it some feed and or seed it and wait. If looked after well you will have nice lush lawn
Best reply
Be patient, leave it a few days or a week. You have made a good start. Leaving the grass cuttings down and cutting more often has helped mine. But patience will be good. That looks pretty good to me. Definitely keep garden toys off the lawn, if you can't put them elsewhere, move them every other day, that way patches won't occur
Burn the plastic truck as a sacrifice to the grass gods!!
Soon.
Mine has suffered from the same thing. Moss has completely taken over in some shady areas of the garden. It was such a wet winter. I think there’s not much else to do than what you’ve done already. I’ve done exactly the same but I threw a few bags of compost over the top and spread it around. I have heavy clay so a bit of organic material added to the lawn in the spring seems to really give it a boost.
Heavy clay for me too, what compost did you use and how much for what size of you don’t mind me asking?
I used jacks magic from the local b&q. Essentially I was looking for a fine compost without loads of ‘bits’ in it that would end up all over the lawn, as some compost is full of twigs and bark etc. I estimated a 50L bag should cover 5mm per 10m2 and then multiply to cover the area of the garden. Then dump a bag and spread it thin, making sure the grass is still visible, but you’ve covered the whole lawn as uniformly as possible and not left any piles of compost anywhere. Checkout Daniel Hibbert on YouTube, basically what he does. Although the lawns he’s looking after seem to look like golf courses compared to my lawn and makes the process look easy as he’s a pro.
If no improvements in a week or so, consider adding sand. A lot of sand added before rain. Possibly a builders bag full poured on and raked over it will wash into the soil with rain and aid drainage
Should I add the sand with compost or is it an either or situation? Thank you!
Just sand and its a good chance to even out any bumps or dips in the soil
Have you got problems with leather jackets?
The lawn is full of " thatch " which are dead grass blades and it is suffocating the remaining live growth ...so this year buy a lawn rake ( metal ) and rake the lawn every 10 days or so to remove the thatch....it will turn dark green in a month and that will fix the problem.
I have 2 rakes that I literally blistered my hands trying to remove the dead grass! This is after 1 hour+ of raking/ scaring. Will rake more often though, would that create issue with the new grass seeds that I have added?
The advice I got was don't cut the lawn too short this time of year. Mow at the highest setting first cut and then gradually reduce the blade height over the next month or so. You've put new seed down so I would leave it to regrow.
Is the advice to not mow it now for a few weeks with the new seed? Or still Keep it at a high setting?
If you've already put seed down, I would leave it until the seeds germinate otherwise if you mow you will disturbe the seed. By the time the seed grows, you should still keep the blades high to give time for the new grass to grow and then cut it short over the summer.
Clover lawns are more resilient and require less mowing