Sad lawn

I laid a new turf lawn in November (a good time of year to do so, I had read, as it would have the whole winter of not being walked on to get established). However it has failed to flourish ââ?¬â?? the grass has gone from being thick and healthy to being patchy and sad-looking. Most alarmingly, yesterday I tried lifting a corner of the turf and it came up no trouble ââ?¬â?? it seems the grass has completely failed to root.

Does anyone have ideas about what I did wrong, and more usefully ââ?¬â?? if thereââ?¬â?¢s anything I can do to rectify things? If I can Iââ?¬â?¢d like to try and save this lawn, though I suppose it would be an easy task to lift up all these turves and compost them, then start again ââ?¬â?? if only I knew what Iââ?¬â?¢d done wrong the first time!

The soil is heavy clay, into which I rotovated a tonne of sharp sand to improve drainage. This seemed to work in all but one corner of the lawn where the soil remains very muddy and boggy (why?). I then compacted the soil by walking all over it in tiny steps, and scattered bone meal on top before laying the turves.

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated!

 

Hi Adam
Dont know where you read that? The author should be shot! Its probably the worst time to lay turves as the grass wont have had time to root and will be dormant. Grass stops growing when the soil temp falls. All is not lost if you are lucky. I notice you are in London so you will perhaps not have a severe winter and the grass may start growing in Spring. Its worth waiting to see. As for your wet patch it may be the water table is near the surface at this point (its been a wet winter) or you may have some clay (which is impermeable) near the surface.
As a last resort if you do have to returf do it in late spring: Click the link for info
http://www.gardeningdata.co.uk/lawns/turf_lawns.htm
I wouldn't compost your 'failed' turves, simply turn them upside down and lay the new over the old. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the advice... I'll wait until the spring and see if it perks up any, maybe reseed the patchy bits, give it a good feed and hope for the best!

Adam