On Sunday, April 27, 2014 5:30:18 PM UTC-4, Marko wrote:
Thanks you for your feedback.



I am in Manchester UK. Last years attempt at weed and feed had some

success in cutting back the weed population but the grass didn't

flourish as I had hoped. I think your crap grass assumption is pretty

accurate.



Today I have strimmed and mowed the lawn and weeded the flower beds. The

lawn is now very patchy with lots of weed shoots visible, also quite a

bit of moss. I've raked the area over but now am in two minds wether to

scalp and reseed/turf or persevere and review in Autumn.



If I choose to wait I will certainly aerate and fertilize as advised

(not sure which order to do this though) and mow regular on a high

setting. Perhaps also using roundup on the weeds as they pop up.



Any further comments would be appreciated, I will attempt to add some

more photos too.



Thanks Mark





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Marko


That looks pretty bad. I don't even see much grass
present. If it were mine, I'd renovate it by killing
off everything with Roundup/glyphosate, wait until
everything is dead, rake up the debris, then aerate.
At that point you can apply seed, or preferably rent
an overseeder, which is powered eqpt that cuts grooves
in the soil and drops seeds. That gives excellent
seed/soil contact, which is what you need. But just
core aerating works too, the plugs of soil that are
removed mix with the seeds.

Use a high quality grass seed and apply starter fertilizer. Test the PH and lime as needed, you can do that now. All this assumes the soil there is basically
OK. If it's not, that's another story.

The preferred time to renovate is in early Sept.
I'd kill it off in late Aug. But, you could also do
it now. That area is small and as long as you can
provide adequate water, you will be OK. If you can't
water it, or water is expensive, etc, then for sure
you want to do it in Fall. The other problem you'll
have doing it now, is more weeds, but you can deal with
that when the grass is established.

And don't use Roundup on weeds in turf. You want
a herbicide for lawns that kills weeds and not the grass.