Part of the back of our back lawn - the chunk bordering the northern boundary - is pretty bare. And there is plenty of moss, there and elsewhere. Consulting reference 1, I find that starting over is recommended, a process that involves serious digging and which would take around a year, start to finish, including leaving the new-lawn-to-be for a few months to settle before seeding it.
This all seemed a bit drastic compared with the BH suggestion, gathered from gardening programmes on television and gardening magazines from the RHS, that it was enough to scatter a bit of seed and compost mixture on the offending patches. Maybe just a spot of spiking or raking to start off with.
So I have gone for a compromise, and will lightly dig over about one half of the northwestern segment of back lawn, that is to say about half a small fork deep. I managed about three quarters of this yesterday, taking out a fair number of surface roots, some quite large, in the process. To which end, the axe end of the trusty mattock proved its worth. A modest number of small worms. With the ground turning out to be surprisingly dry, despite all the recent rain - so perhaps the rain really does just run off the compacted clay - with this ground not having been disturbed for at least thirty years. With downhill being from left to right in the snap above.
The idea being to leave the dug over ground for a day or so, then to rake it down to an acceptable tilth, then to move onto the seed and compost mixture. Job done in seven days rather than seven months. And not too much damage - in the sense of sunk quality time - if it doesn't work out.
Compost and shade loving lawn seed has been bought and is ready to hand.
Part of my thinking being that, since I am taking virtually nothing out, and putting very little back in, it all ought to settle back to more or less where it started.
References
Reference 1: The Lawn Expert - Dr D G Hessayon - 1997.
No comments:
Post a Comment