GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - preparing sandy ground to sow a lawn from seed?

welly_59 · 30-06-2014, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Brown

On 28/06/2014 00:45, Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
welly_59 wrote:

I've recently moved house and have a 30m2 patch of ground that I want to
sow a lawn on. The top 10m2 or so used to have a patio laid on top of it
so it is really sandy, maybe 3 inches or so of sand before you reach any
type of soil.

The rest of the ground is generally slightly sandy and quite compact.

What should I do to prepare this ground for sowing grass seed on?

Dig it over, remove stones and level it. Grass likes sandy soil.
If it is VERY poor, adding some topsoil might help.

Or spent mushroom compost available locally in bulk and cheaply. I'm
with Nick on this as digging in the sand in help the drainage.

Now is a tricky time to sow a new lawn unless you can be sure of three
weeks of solid rain (and Wimbledon fortnight isn't long enough).

You could end up having to do a lot of watering until it establishes by
sowing at the hottest time of the year. Preparing the ground well during
the summer and letting any weed seeds germinate for a while first and
then sowing grass in September might be the best way forward.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Thanks all, it'll probably take a month to get the ground ready anyway so I'll aim for end of august/September for sowing