Can I scarify yet?

[united4ever]

Borrowed an electric scarifier from my dad. The weather is quite good this week up to 12 degrees and no frost. I would like to do it this week ideally. Should I cut it a bit first....haven't cutted since end of october.

Shamelessly marking place as my lawn is a disaster zone

I thought scarifying should be done in thr April or spring time when it was actively growing, this would be too early.

The RHS mag says to prong the grass at the moment.
Ours is very water logged so we can't even cut it yet.

held off in the end....don't want to do more damage than good. Will wait for spring to really arrive.

We’ve got a gardening company coming to scarify our grass next month.

Can someone explain what scarifying is?

It's kind of scraping the grass, so the dead bits are lifted out, and the grass is sort of combed.

The grass needs to be short, or you will pull lumps of grass out by the root.

It goes along with aerating the grass- pronging holes in it to fill with sand.

Then treat it with a fertiliser.

And you have a lawn makeover!

Does anyone know how much it would cost for me to contact a local landscape gardener for them to come and do this?

Also, if I have to do it myself, is it easy?

It's hard work to do it yourself, you need a lawn spring-tined rake for the job. Then you rake over the grass to rake out all the moss and thatch. You can buy an electric lawn rake which makes the job much easier. Or contact a local lawn specialist who should be able to do it - Green Thumb is a country wide franchise, I got them to do it for me once, I think it cost about £60 or £70 to do an average sized lawn, but I have an old electric rake which I now use to DIY.

We use a company similar to Green Thumb, I think they are local to us though. They scarify, treat and take away all the waste (which green thumb wouldn’t) and it cost is £180 but have about 1/3 of an acre garden so quite a lot of grass. My Dad got his smaller garden done for around £70-£80. Well worth it, it’s hard work. They sent 3 people to ours and it took them half a day with taking and collecting all the moss etc.

I've called green thumb but they never got back to me - anyone know someone in SW London or Surrey that they recommend?

I contacted a local lawn care service and they are doing it for me together with 5 x lawn treatments and lawn moving throughout the year . As always, mumsnet full of good and practical advice.. Great thread