lawn conundrum

It`s NOT special treatment, it is what you are supposed to do at this time of year. FEEDING is special treatment in November. So you ARE cheating.

 

Let`s take it a step further. You are due to visit this garden in a month, ie December 22nd. The ground is frozen and there is snow forecast, but you STILL feed the lawn, why?

 

Calm down lads, its just a bit of grass. Not worth getting het up about now is it.

 

Surely, EDUCATING is more apt?:happydance::happydance::happydance::yess:

 

Because it is so warm and mild the worms are very active. Think yourself lucky the moles haven`t sniffed them out. If you want to kill the worms treat the lawn with ferrous sulphate, better known as sulphate of iron. Your local garden centre should have in stock turf and lawn topdressing. Brush it in once you`ve aerated.

 

Laboratory testing or not, adding chemicals in an organic world is not right. Calling some of your customers tightfisted, then inviting them here to view it is sheer lunacy. Insunuating that some members here are past their best (its how I interpret your comments) when I and many others here consider him highly experienced is pure evil to my mind.

Looking into the link you posted about the lawn food I read that its temperature controlled release so that in Autumn it strengthens roots (exactly as scarify, aerate and top dress would do) and it greens up quickly in spring, the same as the aforementioned task would do, but at the cost of £250 per acre (more lunacy!)

Give me the green way any day of the week, a bit of exercise utilising the knowledge of thousands of gardeners who have done it many times before and did not need to consult or ask a supercomputer how to do it, or a laboratory to test to the n'th degree the levels of chemicals required to green up a lawn and possibly run off the land and cause environmental problems. I'll save my pounds thank you very much and buy a fork, a spring rake and a bag of top dressing (or make my own up - yes - gardeners have worked that out too!) Then I can sit down with a cuppa, knowing full well my lawn will be healthy and green, the environment is safe, my bank balance healthy and I have had some gentle exercise to do me good too....perfect!

Steve...

 

no .... you must have misunderstood .... I am visiting the garden today and will put the autumn lawn fertilizer on the lawn this afternoon, and will water it in .....

I will monitor during winter and early spring to see if it has been beneficial or not

 

well obviously, organic is the more 'environmental friendly' way to do things, but chemical fertilizers and pesticides/herbicides are used by most farmers and by many gardeners .... new products are continuosly being developed

as for inviting my 'tight fisted' clients to the forum, you obviously never read my post proper .... the 'tight fisted' ones don't care much about their gardens and only do the very least they have to do at the cheapest price ...

the people who I have told to visit this forum are the people who are keen gardeners who spend time in their gardens and spend money on buying plants and growing their own veg .... they hire me to help as they don't have time to do everything themselves, or are elderly, and many know much more about gardening than what I do

as for the cost of the fertilizer, obviously if you have an acre of lawn to fertilize, it will be costly .... approx £250 per 4000 sq meters (1 acre) if you buy from places such as Homebase (cheaper if you buy from trade suppliers)

but perhaps much cheaper than if I had to hire an aerator for 2 days, a scarifier for 2 days, then remove the plugs, topdress etc.... and assuming I want to do the job properly

just the cost of hiring the aerator per day can be as high as £140 ... and a scarifier also costs approx £140 per day ...

and for an acre of lawn (4000 sq meters), you will need to use the aerator and the scarifier for more than 1 day to do 2 passes with each machine.... so that is 2 days of work on it's own, .... without the time it takes to mow or topdress and the cost of the topdress and the time it takes to collect and return the machines

... I have done several smaller gardens using a garden fork and rake but would never attempt this method on a larger lawn .... it is however recommended to aerate/scarify a lawn once a year

the last lawn that I aerated and scarified with a garden fork and rake took me more than 2hrs (mow, rake, mow again, aerate 2 passes at 6 inch intervals and approx 3-4 inches deep) ... the lawn is approx 80 sq meters and I ended up having blisters on my hands as there was lots of building rubble near the top surface in many places

larger lawns such as 1/2 an acre or larger need the use of these (or similar) ... and they are not cheap to hire:

http://www.thelawnshop.co.uk/shopping/Lawn+Aerator+Hire/Turf+Aerator+Hire+-+Per+Each+Day.html

http://www.thelawnshop.co.uk/shoppi.../Sisis+MK4+Scarifier+Hire+-+Per+Each+Day.html


hovever, if you have a lawn of 360 sq meters, fertilizer costs you under £25 .... and if you have a small lawn (100 sq meters), fertilizer costs under a tenner .... and bear in mind that some of the autumn lawn fertilizer has added chemicals to control moss ...

is fertilizing lawns in autumn better than aerating/scarifying and adding a topdress? .... NO .... but it works out cheaper and the lawn looks good

and although Dai is highly experienced, he sometimes comes out with outrageous comments .... to say that he knows more than the manufactures etc is but one of those comments .... Bear in mind that this forum ranks highly in the google searches ..... search for something garden related, and the likelyhood of GC appearing on page 1 of the google search is highly likely

so .... someone new to gardening searches for 'autumn lawn fertilizer' on google .... they get directed to this thread and read posts from 'experienced' gardeners who state that it is a total waste of money? ...

suppose one has to be a bit more careful when making such bold statements?

 

very nice Shiney and a totally different type of garden and different concept to gardens that I maintain

prob with some of the gardens I tend to is that they want the greenest lawn in the village for 12 months of the year... complete with (straight)stripes etc

it's hard to do without using chemicals

 

It's easy to do it without using chemicals. I maintain all of my lawns to a very high standard without using any chemicals.

But as Armandii has stated above now's the time to take this into it's own thread if this discussion's going to continue. Start the thread and point me in it's direction if you want to discuss the off topic points in this thread

 

Kandy, do you mean get rid of the worms or the worm casts?
If you just want to get rid of the casts, pick a good 'drying' day and simply brush over the grass, if the casts are reasonably dry they will simply crumble and disappear.
Before you consider killing the worms it's worth bearing in mind their beneficial effects in a lawn.
Worms aerate the soil constantly by making numerous small tunnels and channels, thus improving drainage, aeration and soil structure.
They also enrich the soil by taking organic matter from the surface and pulling it below ground to feed on.
Having thus aerated and fed the grass, they then provide a free top dressing in the form of the aforementioned casts, which is easy to spread (see above) and completely free.
I know worm casts can be a bit unsightly at times, but it's only likely to be a problem at certain times, when the weather is both mild and wet. They will normally retreat deeper below the surface in dry summer weather and also in the depths of winter as the ground gets colder.
In my opinion, overall, the benefits of worms possibly outweigh the disadvantages.

EDIT:
Oops, just realised Armandii said much the same thing at the top of the page. Think I missed a page before posting this! :o