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Please help me with transforming my lawn (nr Guildford)

8 replies

bemybebe · 02/04/2011 14:34

I am ready to cry... We have moved into our current house over 5 years ago and the garden was always very beautiful. The lawn on the other hand was 'so-so' - bumpy in places, uneven growth, but nothing a good lawnmower and some regular feeding could not make 'ok'. As I was working full time and, most importantly, traveled abroad for most of my work, I employed gardener to help out. Which he did, until two years ago. The lawn was ok.

Last year early in the season I decided to look after the garden myself and started with scarifying, which turned to be disastrous for the lawn. I think that I did significantly weakened the plants as all throughout the summer the weeds were popping up in places they have never been seen before, there were bald patches (subsequently reseeded) and the grass was much thinner throughout. Even after a nice cut it looked rather sad.

In August we took a puppy and now she is adding her 'marks' in the form of urine patches (nothing we can do about those) and a great number of deep holes all throughout (we can supervise her and stop digging but atm it looks bad).

Now that it is the time to start cutting the grass again, my heart is sinking. What are my options for making the lawn decent again? Is it only a complete overhaul? I think I am happy to go as far as taking everything up and reseeding or returfing it, but what are the costs involved? Can someone recommend a company/gardener who can just come over and do the new lawn from scratch? Should I try to work iwth the current lawn 'slowly-slowly'? Oh, yeah, I am 16 weeks pregnant and have a disabled dh, so the amount of work should take this into account. Having screwed up last summer with scarifying I am also afraid to mess it up further.

Oh yeah, I recon it is about 300-350m2. Any ideas?

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zisforzebra · 02/04/2011 23:00

How about some Weed and feed and then chuck down copious amounts of grass seed to thicken it up a bit? The Garden Expert book range do one specifically on lawns which you might be able to get at the library if you didn't want to buy a copy.

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MollieO · 02/04/2011 23:08

You can do something about the dog. If you use a watering can on where he pees just after he has been you will dilute the effect if the ammonia.

Try Greenthumb for lawn treatment. They're a franchise so how good they are may vary. My mum uses them (Berkshire) and has been very pleased with the results.

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bemybebe · 03/04/2011 01:06

Thank you ladies, I actually have the Garden Expert Lawn book (my scarifying idea is from it), but I will be consulting it closely tomorrow again. i will also check out Greenthumb. Heard of them, will google for more info. The dog idea is good in theory, but in practice it is really hard to watch her all the time when she is out. But I am ok with it, it is just one of downsides of dog ownership.

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LadyWellian · 03/04/2011 01:35

I'm sure I remember reading something about 'dog rocks' that stop brown patches. Hang on, I'll Google it.

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LadyWellian · 03/04/2011 01:43

Here you go. They go in the dog's water bowl and do something to the pee without affecting the dog, apparently.

Apart from that I can't offer much practical help. The lawn in our last place wasn't an unqualified success (it was OK, but never better than that), in part because there was a large tree overhanging it. I'll be turfing part of my new garden this year but at the moment I'm still at the site clearance stage.

With weeds it's mainly a question of keeping on top of them, which doesn't sound terribly doable in your current situation. I pulled out over 1,000 teasel plants (thanks to the birds and the lazy bastards non-gardeners next door) but then it was all bald patches.

Why do we do it?!

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bemybebe · 03/04/2011 13:28

I know!! Smile But there is nothing like lying on the green carpet on a hot summers day sipping your pimms with a great book, ah?

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isabellaevans · 20/05/2013 09:39

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HaveToWearHeels · 20/05/2013 11:17

A 2nd vote here for both Dog Rocks and Green Thumb, since we have been using Green Thumb our lawn looks fantastic and it doesn't break the bank at all.

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