Pre turf fertiliser

Hi, new user here. Been doing work on my front and rear garden after buying a new house. I've done all the hard landscaping (multiple years in building trade) and the last thing to do is create a lawn (about 30 SQM).

I've read a little on it and watched a few videos. I have very limited experience in gardening but am reaching an age where it is more attractive to me. Successfully growing plants for a few years now in borders, window boxes and pots. The other half has sourced a decent nursery where we will get our turf. It's specifically pre fertiliser I am interested in getting some advice on.

I know it's not ideal time of year to be laying turf, but she wants it in ASAP. I have the ground rotavated/cleaned up/levelled etc. I have a ton of OK looking top soil - screened (got from a builders merchant few weeks back) to fill in some low areas and top up what's there.

I am reading different advice regarding fertilising the soil in prep for the turf.

1) Some say as it's not seed no fertiliser is needed. They say that the turf has enough fertiliser in it to be getting on with. Others disagree. What's your experience?

2) I live in Northern Ireland and therefore can't buy online (won't post fertiliser). It's more difficult than you think in sourcing a specific pre-turf fertiliser. B&Q do one - but no stock near me. I tried the local and larger gardening centres and suppliers and none are stocking them. This got me to thinking - can I use what I have or buy a more suitable general fertiliser.

3) The NPK of the specific ones for this job tend to balance out at 6/9/6 or 6/10/6 (I read the details of around 7 of them and they were all the same. I have a large quantity of Fish Blood and Bone (3/9/3 NPK) - would this be suitable and if so - being an organic fertiliser how much would you rake in per SQM

4) Bonemeal (3/9/0 NPK) is readily available near me and has been mentioned as a suitable pre-turf fertiliser. I would be happy to buy if it's better than the Fish blood and bone. Again - if bonemeal how much per SQM would you rake in.

5) Happy to buy and use anything I can easily get (keep in mind - it needs to be readily available and living in NI is not as easy to source things that you can get much easier in the mainland UK).

I appreciate your experienced views and time taken to respond. Thankyou in advance. I apologise if it's a lengthy post, but my experience of forums is that not enough information is often posted that allows an informed response. I hope I have avoided that. Be gentle - I am very new to grass.

 

I have added turf to someone's garden with no pre-turf fertiliser and it grew away fine so I don't think using such a product is necessary. You could just role the turf out in place and make sure to keep it watered until it settles in. The precise amendments that you would ideally make to your lawn area would depend on your specific soil but grass is fairly robust and adaptable so I think doing nothing would probably work fine. Were there earth worms in the ground when you were preparing the soil for the turf to be laid on it? That would indicate good fertile soil so fertiliser would be less of an issue.

In another garden where I put in a lawn area to be planted by seed I added standard peat based compost to add some organic matter to make up for the loss of organic material in the thin layer of weeds I stripped off before setting the seed and that also grew well with no additional fertiliser. This bulk compost also helped level the seed bed for the grass and probably helped it retain water to some extent and as the seeding had to be done going into summer I thought this might be beneficial.

Lawn in my own garden was also grown from seed with no fertiliser without any problems. I like to leave clover grow away with the grass and this as well as being good for the bees provides nitrogen for the grass from the air so I have not had any reason to apply lawn fertiliser after planting either.

Happy gardening!

 

Thanks for the response. I imagine the ground I rotavated has not been turned over in decades. It was hard and compact but did rotavate into a fine soil. No worms at all - so perhaps I can assume there is little goodness in that.

Any harm in adding what I already have (Fish blood and bone)?

 

Fish blood and bone would likely be good for it and if you had any home made compost to spread about it might do some good as well. Being turned over isn't needed for soil to be fertile but no worms isn't a good sign. Grass types used in lawn mix are fairly tough so it should be fine but no harm improving it if it looks to you like it might not be the best. There are also lawn fertilisers you could apply afterwards if it is slow to start growing vigorously after planting but just making sure it does not dry out is the main thing to focus on.

All the best!

 

Thanks again. No home made compost so will put on the FB&B and keep it from drying out. If it looks like it's struggling then I will feed afterwards. Thanks for the advice

 

Hi,

No lawn Expert, but as you already have it, think a small handful of FB&B per sq mtr/yard would be fine, but applied the day before the turf is layed and then raked very lightly and given a gentle light spray of the hose pipe so it does not burn the roots.
There should be no need to add any more fertiliser until the autumn feed; you can over do things.

Would not add any form of soft compost to your prepared bed, which should have been 'healed' in or rolled etc and then gentley raked to its final level.