3 Week Old Turf - Advice Please

Hi all,

I recently bought my first home and after not having a garden for 7 years in my old place, really wanted to make something of it.

I’m new to gardening and have done all the work myself in order to save some money. Whether I’ll regret this decision at a later date is yet to be seen!

I rotarvated the soil, added around 2 tons of top soil to around a 25m2 area, got rid of as many stones and rocks as I could and laid the turf within around 2 hours of it being delivered.

The grass seems to be firmly rooted in the ground and won’t come up when I try to lift any of the corners.

It was quite hot in the north of England when I laid it unfortunately and I believe the sprinkler I used maybe wasn’t on for long enough at a time for the first initial week. I’m currently watering it using a hose with the rainfall setting and covering the full garden giving it a good drench morning and evening for the past week.

I’m just concerned that patches you can see in the images may be dead, or aren’t going to come back. They still seem to be firmly in the soil as I’ve tried the tug test and they don’t come away, but there are small patches within the brown bits around 2 inches wide that have no growth and all I can see is soil.

No pets have gone on it, and I’ve not given it any feed as of yet as suggested by the people I bought the turf from.

Any advice on what I can do to help things along, or whether it’s just a waiting game and see what happens by next year! Thanks in advance if you comment with any tips, I’ll be sure to take them on board.

 

I think I would leave the turf alone. Keep up with the watering, unless you have what we are having at the moment, nice steady rain. No feeding or mowing yet. The patches may recover, grass is very tough. If next year there are bald patches, you could scratch the soil and reseed the patches in early Spring or Sept./ Oct. As a whole, your new lawn is looking pretty good.

 

Thanks for the comment, glad to hear it doesn’t look as bad as I’m thinking! Would you recommend leaving the first mow until 6 weeks?

Seems to be the general consensus for everything I’m reading.

 

When you carry out the first cut depends entirely on the weather after the lawn is sown or laid.

The grass needs to be a minimum of 4 inches tall, and your mower needs to be on its highest setting before cutting. Just the tips of the grass should be removed and collected. I would never strim a "baby" lawn. The individual blades of
grass are very fine and tender so a strimmer or Flymo would be too aggressive.