Complete Beginner. Spiders. Dead Grass. Crawling Plants. Oh My

Hi, Moved into newbuild ground floor flat 2 yrs ago. Paid for garden to be turfed last year. Have loads of questions, but will limit to a few...

Base of the building has rubble in place of a flowerbed which I'm told is to stop damp. As I can't use soil there then I'd like to place a few pots on top and grow flowers/veg. However, among the stones there are tons of spiders. Is this normal and would you advise I get rid of them somehow before placing tomato plants, for example?

Plan to treat the fence with a preserver this Easter (would a roller be better than a brush?), pin up some type of mesh and place pots against the fence in corners of the garden. Hopefully I can then plant some kind of plant that will eventually climb the trellis and offer some kind of privacy in the garden. What plant(s) would you recommend?

I completely neglected the grass. Paid someone weeks ago to give first cut this year (very overgrown) and it has become really brown and patchy. Cut it myself yesterday and it doesn't look great. Grass in shadow of fence is mostly brown, and area round the side of the building is extremely patchy. Will the grass miraculously return to life during Summer? Can it return to green lush state with treatment? Or is it a lost cause? I'm hoping the front grass can be salvaged, but guessing the dry patchy area round the side of the building is beyond recovery so might start a vegetable patch or something there.

Any advice would be much appreciated. I can post pictures if it helps.

Hopefully I can post further questions in the future. Thanks.

 

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Don't get rid of the spiders. As creepy as they are, they will help you out loads by catching and munching many of the flies that would bug you and/or your plants.

As for the grass, do I understand correctly that it was all turfed recently, and you neglected it? I may have misread that bit, not sure. If that's right, then sadly I suspect lots of it is dead. Turf needs to be keep well watered for at least a few weeks after its laid, and even then you need to ensure it never gets bone dry for at least the first year. If you didn't keep on top of the watering when it was first put down, then the unfortunately its quite likely that it dried out before it had chance to get roots deeper into the soil to find water.

 

As I understand it you had the grass laid last year, and it got its first cut of THIS year a couple of weeks ago and it is still brown ?
If it was green before the winter then I should think it just needs a good lawn feed and will green up with the summer sun and rain

Coating the fence, you would be best with a four inch paste brush, as the presevative is just like water, easy and quick to apply, you could do about 20' x 6' easily in an hour rail and pale, or half an hour if latticed

For the climbers I would go for quick cover Clemantis, and for even quicker cover Clemantis MONTANA Available in white pink or striped strawberries and cream
For a slower growth then nice scented climbing roses, Honeysuckle or jasmine

Get stuck in

Jack McHammocklashing

 

Thanks a lot for the replies. I did water the turf a lot when it was laid down, maybe not enough - I don't know. But it is pretty sorry looking now. I'll try some lawn feed and hope for the best. Glad to know the preservative is like water, hopefully will be easier to apply than I anticipated. Will look out for those climbers, and put up with the spiders for now :-)
Will be checking back often, glad to have found such a useful forum. Thanks again.