Lawn Renovation
Sometimes a lawn looks as if it is beyond repair. If you’ve just moved home and the lawn has been neglected for years, or if you’ve just had other priorities, you may have a lawn that is full of thatch, weeds and moss. In these circumstances, it can be tempting to consider laying new turf.
However, while there can be a compelling case for new turf (speed for appearance and erosion control, for example) there are other options. Often, careful renovation is preferable and there are considerable benefits in ‘rescuing’ selected areas of grass or creating a new lawn from seed. In particular, when growing from seed you can select a grass that suits both your soil type and the expected use – you might choose differently for an area used by children and pets when compared to a treasured croquet lawn! Additionally, compared to new laid turf, planting from seed often results in better established roots and a healthier lawn in the long term.
Renovation can be a combination of one or more of the following, depending on the particular needs of each lawn.
- Aeration – to relieve compaction and improve irrigation, drainage, micro-organism activity and letting in air and nutrients.
- Scarification – physically removing excess thatch (the accumulated grassy material beneath the green blades themselves), moss and grass clippings, allowing for easier and healthier growth of the grass in your lawn.
- Lawn treatment – the selective use of appropriate nutrients where this is justified – often, though, the physical renovation will have significant impacts, so extra treatments are not always necessary.
- Over-seeding – new grass seed added to an existing lawn to rejuvenate worn patches or thin grass. Often this is done after aeration and scarifying.
- Top-dressing – where significant repair work is required, top dressing uses a mixture of loam soil and fine sand to create a rich and even surface for re-seeding.
- Turf Cutting – This is where we use a machine to cut the thatch layer off the turf and expose the soil beneath. This provides us with a perfect surface for seeding.
As with all our services, we recommend only those actions that are necessary. We don’t ‘up sell’ and we’ll do what is necessary to get your lawn healthy again and looking great.