Getting Back to Grass Roots…

Spring is an excellent time of year to be thinking about renovating or improving your lawn, whether it’s beautifully laid out and mowed with perfect stripes or perhaps used as an impromptu football pitch or bicycle racetrack.

Either way, most lawns require some TLC sooner or later, and top dressing with Chargrace 10mm Rootzone will increase resistance to weeds and aid drainage. 

Laden with nutrients, Chargrace Rootzone is perfect for filling in small hollows and depressions. The sandy elements will improve drainage and allow the root structure of your lawn to become event better established.

Suitable for almost all types of turf and grass cultivars, continued use of Chargrace Rootzone will improve the health of your lawn year on year. 

For overseeding, which will thicken and establish the sward, spring and autumn are the best times; you may wish to treat or remove any weed before solid tining the grass or carrying out heavy scarification.

Depending on the size of your lawn, you can do the former manually with a square tined fork (make sure there are no electrical cables below the surface first!) and the latter with a decent spring rake, which will also help you save on your gym fees, as it will be quite the workout.

For the more extensive lawn, we would recommend a machine; these can quickly be hired from your local hire shop but do check that the tines are in good condition before use and try to plan the work for a decent spell of weather, which along with the lawn needs to be dry for this work to be carried out.

Once you have either aerated or scarified your lawn, you may wish to over seed, which will thicken the sward where it may have become thin or even bald. To work out how much seed you would need, you can look for your lawn on Google Maps, zoom in as close as you can without losing definition, pick a point from which you wish to start measuring (on the perimeter of the lawn) right click and choose ‘measure distance’.

 Depending on its use, you may wish to do some research into which seed mix would be best for your lawn. If there is heavy traffic from children and /or dogs, you may wish to go for a hardwearing mix of dwarf ryegrass and creeping red fescue. 

For shadier lawns, choose a smooth-stalked meadowgrass and a resilient blend of bluegrass. 

If your lawn gets light traffic and needs to look super lush, a mix of bents and fescues could be what you’re looking for. There are hundreds of blends available to suit your particular lawn.  

You may wish to order a bit extra seed for any minor repairs. If you do, keep it in your shed inside a biscuit tin – this will deter rodents; they can smell it from miles away.   

Put the grass seed in a bucket and spread thinly by hand, walking up and down in rows, first one way, then across ways, and keep going until all the grass seed is gone. If you have a spreader, that’s even better.

Once the grass seed is spread, have a cup of tea and sit down for ten minutes. It’s time now to start top dressing your lawn.

Once again, if you have a spreader, use it. Again, work up and down in rows, and then across ways, keep going until all the Chargrace Rootzone is gone.  

You will now need to level it out; you can use a drag mat, a lute (an angle iron frame on a handle) or even the back of a wide rake. Keep working the Chargrace Rootzone in until any depressions have been filled in, and you can manly see blades of grass across the lawn. 

You cannot overdo this stage; the more you rake or drag-mat the lawn, the better it will be.

Once you are satisfied that the lawn has now been completely top-dressed, water it thoroughly or hope for rain. You will soon see an improvement.