On Oct 19, 8:53*pm, tricky123
wrote:
hi all

am new here so please forgive any faux pas/rubbishness/ignorance

i'm not a gardener by any means but have managed to transform my lawn
from a wilderness to something approaching semi respectability by ley
man's standards.

we bought our house last spring ('10) and garden was a wilderness so
have managed to clear it of wood/fire scorch marks and flatten then sow
some grass seed into the lawn to make it half decent.

the new grass has taken quite well and combines with the old grass
reasonably ok.

however there are still patches in the lawn where old weeds/nettles/old
shrubs/plants grow thickly or bare ground is evident and visible.

what's the best way of sorting this out so the weeds etc are killed, the
new grass stays healthy and the bare bits are thickened up with more
green?

Bare ground, assuming the soil is OK, you plant seed.
Most weeds you can kill with a broadleaf weed killer for
lawns which will kill the weeds, not the grass.
Undesirable grasses, vines, etc, probably best to kill
with Roundup or another glyphosate type killer that
will kill them, but also grass. Then those areas you
can reseed after you've removed the dead stuff. Can
reseed a week after applying glyphosate.

Shrubs you have to either dig out or cut down completely



all i want is a flat-ish, green lawn...nothing more, nothing less.

obviously its october now, so do i need to leave it till the spring and
kill the weeds off as they grow, or is there anything i can do over the
winter to kill weeds/nettles which are now cut down by the last mow of
the summer?

The herbicides will work now, but the weeds need to be
actively growing, so don't wait too long. The cooler it
gets, the less active they are and the harder to kill.



i take it its not worth using the left over grass seed during the winter
months or should i just bung it on and see what happens?

Not sure of the temps right now in the UK, but grass needs
soil temps in the 50s to germinate. That usually means
daytime temps in the 60s, 50s at night. It also needs time
to establish before winter. So, here in the NYC area we
are at the end of the window. If I had a few small bare
spots, I'd take a chance and seed those now. But I would
not attempt a lawn renovation, ie seeding large areas now.

You should also put down a Fall fertilizer which will give
it a good boost.




all advice very welcome and i'd be most grateful for any
thoughts/experience/words of wisdom.

many thanks in advance

--
tricky123