Archive for the ‘Garden Tips’ Category

April is the start of the Spring lawn maintenance program, main jobs for April as well as mowing are :

• Scarifying
• Fertilising
• Moss Treatment
• Spot Weed Treatment
• Aeration
• Top Dressing
• Repairs to the lawn

As the year has got off to a slow start due to cold weather and snow you may well have not made your first cut yet but you need to start quite soon as April is usually a wet month, as soon a temperatures start to rise growth will be vigorous and mowing will become difficult. Mow later in the day giving the grass time to dry out a little and leave the mower to cut quite high until your into a regular mowing pattern. When finished thoroughly clean out the mower as you don’t want wet grass stuck in the blades or under the canopy as this will cause rust problems to metal parts and always keep blades sharp.

March starts the lawn care year, first jobs to take care of are aeration and moss treatment. You also need to make sure your mower is serviced and ready for the forthcoming season and if ground conditions allow you can mow the lawn on a very high setting to tidy it up after the Winter.

Aeration and De-compaction

You can carry out aeration with a garden fork or hollow tine fork on heavily walked on areas of the lawn if the ground is not too soft and no frosts are imminent.

Your main aeration effort should be spiking (with solid spikes) the whole lawn from the middle of the month onwards. You will find spiking anything more than a small lawn much easier with the aerator shoes or a rolling aerator which can be bought relatively cheaply from either the internet or most garden centres, it’s a lot quicker using these and pain free !

February is a quiet month for lawn care, if the lawn is frozen or waterlogged then you should keep off altogether but if conditions allow you need to remove all debris and leaves from the lawn using a lawn rake, worm casts also need to be removed with a besom broom.

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Heavy raking or scarifying is going to seriously thin the lawn leaving soil exposed in many places. This makes an ideal seed bed not only for over seeding with new and improved grass seed but also for all the weed and weed grass seeds floating around.

By confining this intensive treatment to August or September you will avoid the bulk of the years weed seeds. If you do this in spring you’ll just replace your moss or thatch problem with a weed problem! Having said that, there are a few exceptions when spring is the best time.

It is better to rake or scarify in spring if you were unable to do it the previous autumn perhaps due to bad weather rather than put it off. Keep putting it off from autumn to autumn could mean you’ll have a bigger problem than a few weeds!

If the area to be scarified is shady. Shady areas will thin over winter and thicken up from spring onwards. Therefore if you scarify in autumn you’ll just make things worse.

If the area is under trees. The shade from trees plus the autumn fall of leaves will reduce grass health and vigour but in spring – late March through April – the trees are bare allowing maximum light to your lawn enabling good growth and maximum opportunity for new grass seed to get growing.

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To create a good, nutrient-rich compost, the best garden waste to use is clippings, leaves, plants and hedge cuttings. A good petrol garden shredder will efficiently shred these items, ensuring they rot away quickly to produce fantastic high quality compost.

Once the waste material has been shredded, simply transfer it to a compost bin and let it decompose; the resulting compost can in turn be added to your garden beds and borders so that its nutrients help encourage the growth of strong, healthy plants.

Woody, brown garden waste is less suitable for creating compost, due to the lengthy time it takes to decay. However, a petrol garden shredder with a chipping facility will effortlessly turn tougher brown waste items such as tree branches into extremely useful mulch.

Once the petrol garden shredder has processed the material it can be placed on beds and borders to suppress weeds, help the retention of moisture in the soil and also serve as a decorative finish. As the mulch slowly decays over time, the soil will benefit from its nutrients.

Don’t forget that mulch is totally versatile and can also be used to dress children’s play areas as well as garden paths.
A petrol garden shredder really will enable you to effectively recycle your garden waste and make a contribution to the environment, as well as ensuring that your garden receives the nourishment is requires, year after year.