Hello All,

It has been many years since I did any gardening - the last time was over 20 years ago as a child - and I have no experience whatsoever with lawns. I am starting again now with a new house. My current task is to turn what is still the remains of a building site into a garden and the very first thing I need to do is to lay a lawn along the side of the house. I am hoping that I will get some useful tips here. I give a few details below

a. The side of the house is 11m long and tapers from 4m down to just over 2m.
b. Along the 11m length the ground slopes downwards towards the street - a total drop of around 50cm.
c. The soil appears to be very well drained but is somewhat rocky - the remains of the build.

What I want to do is to use rollout turf to lay a lawn here. I want something that will be low maintenance and will do a good job of stopping weeds and other unwanted guests growing through.

Questions

a. What sort of ground preparation do I need? Should I, for instance, lay a good layer of garden soil before I lay the turf?
b. Should I consider breaking up the 11m length so the slope in each section is somewhat less than the current grade of 4.5%?
c. What are the options with rollout turf - is there just the one kind or are there many varieties.
d. What sort of regular maintenance will be required? Will I be able to avoid use of chemical pesticides & weed killers?

OK - I am a real newbie and it shows. But I hope that I will get some useful advice nevertheless

On Apr 13, 3:00*am, FredAt wrote:
Hello All,

It has been many years since I did any gardening - the last time was
over 20 years ago as a child - and I have no experience whatsoever with
lawns. *I am starting again now with a new house. *My current task is to
turn what is still the remains of a building site into a garden and the
very first thing I need to do is to lay a lawn along the side of the
house. *I am hoping that I will get some useful tips here. *I give a few
details below

a. The side of the house is 11m long and tapers from 4m down to just
over 2m.
b. Along the 11m length the ground slopes downwards towards the street -
a total drop of around 50cm.
c. The soil appears to be very well drained but is somewhat rocky - the
remains of the build.

What I want to do is to use rollout turf to lay a lawn here. *I want
something that will be low maintenance and will do a good job of
stopping weeds and other unwanted guests growing through.

Questions

a. What sort of ground preparation do I need? *Should I, for instance,
lay a good layer of garden soil before I lay the turf?
b. Should I consider breaking up the 11m length so the slope in each
section is somewhat less than the current grade of 4.5%?
c. What are the options with rollout turf - is there just the one kind
or are there many varieties.
d. What sort of regular maintenance will be required? *Will I be able to
avoid use of chemical pesticides & weed killers?

OK - I am a real newbie and it shows. *But I hope that I will get some
useful advice nevertheless

--
FredAt

The first step is to figure out where in the world you are. The turf
solutions for Florida are going to be different than those in Canada.

I live in Luxembourg. Winters are colder and longer than in the UK and summers are probably a bit hotter. Rain - well, less than in the UK. The lawn will be exposed to sunshine for 8+h during the summer months. Does that provide enough info?

On Apr 13, 11:34*am, FredAt wrote:
;883300 Wrote:





On Apr 13, 3:00*am, FredAt wrote:-
Hello All,

It has been many years since I did any gardening - the last time was
over 20 years ago as a child - and I have no experience whatsoever
with
lawns. *I am starting again now with a new house. *My current task is
to
turn what is still the remains of a building site into a garden and
the
very first thing I need to do is to lay a lawn along the side of the
house. *I am hoping that I will get some useful tips here. *I give a
few
details below

a. The side of the house is 11m long and tapers from 4m down to just
over 2m.
b. Along the 11m length the ground slopes downwards towards the street
-
a total drop of around 50cm.
c. The soil appears to be very well drained but is somewhat rocky -
the
remains of the build.

What I want to do is to use rollout turf to lay a lawn here. *I want
something that will be low maintenance and will do a good job of
stopping weeds and other unwanted guests growing through.

Questions

a. What sort of ground preparation do I need? *Should I, for instance,
lay a good layer of garden soil before I lay the turf?

Any money and time spent now getting 6" of decent topsoil can save you
years of time and money spent later on chemicals, water, re-seeding,
etc. trying to make the lawn look good. And without decent topsoil,
it may never look right. I'd find a neighbor with a good looking
lawn and ask them what they used.

Getting good soil depends on what is there and what is available
locally at reasonable prices. Options for improvement include
trucking in screened topsoil or adding amendments to what is there and
tilling it in. Those amendments could be compost, seasoned manure,
etc. Or if the soil is heavy clay, you could also mix in sand. It
all depends on what you have now.

I'd get the soil PH tested and adjust with limestone as needed. You
can buy test kits at garden centers or online. Also, if there is any
govt agricultural help centeres available locally, check them out.



b. Should I consider breaking up the 11m length so the slope in each
section is somewhat less than the current grade of 4.5%?

That grade isn't steep at all. I'd only break it up if you wanted to
do it for cosmetic reasons, eg a planting bed. Breaking it up just
makes it harder to mow.


c. What are the options with rollout turf - is there just the one kind
or are there many varieties.

That depends on what is available in your area. Your talking cool
season grass. Here in the NYC area that would commonly be bluegrass
mixed with tall fescue. But even then, there are individual
varieties. You can ask the local suppliers what they use and for the
names of the actual grass. If you search for NTEP you will find a
database that has most grasses listed and will tell you the finer
points on each, ie disease resistance, spring green up time, color,
texture, water needs, etc. Don;t know how the varities available
here will map to over there though.

I can tell you this though. Selecting the right grass makes a
difference. I grew my lawn from seed and used midnight blue and
justice tall fescue. Two weeks ago, my lawn was a beautiful green
already. A friend nearby has a house that used sod about 5 years
ago. It still was brown and only now, over 2 weeks later is it
starting to look green. Both lawns had Fall fertilizer applied.
He put fertilizer on a week ago, mine has had nothing so far. I'm
waiting until warmer weather when I will put down fertilizer with
crabgrass preventer.


d. What sort of regular maintenance will be required? *Will I be able
to
avoid use of chemical pesticides & weed killers?

Depends on what you want it to look like and how green you want it to
be. For fertilizer, which you should need about 2X a year, Spring
and Fall, you can choose traditional or organic. A healthy, thick
lawn should not have many weeds. A 2 gallon tank sprayer with
herbicide can be used to deliver it right to the weeds, minimizing the
amount use. That's the approach I use. Or you can go green and try
to deal with the weeds without herbicide.

Water is another issue. If you want it to be green all summer and
depending on the rainfall you get, you likely will need to water it
some of the time. Consider installing sprinklers before the lawn.
It's a real pain to try to water any decent size lawn by hand. Also,
check the price of water and other options. Here, it's cheaper to
put in a well for irrigation instead of using municipal water.




OK - I am a real newbie and it shows. *But I hope that I will get some
useful advice nevertheless

--
FredAt-

The first step is to figure out where in the world you are. *The turf
solutions for Florida are going to be different than those in Canada.

I live in Luxembourg. *Winters are colder and longer than in the UK and
summers are probably a bit hotter. *Rain - well, less than in the UK.
The lawn will be exposed to sunshine for 8+h during the summer months.
Does that provide enough info?

--
FredAt- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Thank you very much for the detailed response. Just two more questions

a. You mention adjusting the pH. Where can I read up on what the right pH should be?

b. I doubt that I have the time (sadly) or the experience (as yet) to grow the lawn from seed so am planning to use rollout turf. Do the comments you have made apply to that as well?

On Apr 15, 1:22 pm, FredAt wrote:
Thank you very much for the detailed response. Just two more questions

a. You mention adjusting the pH. Where can I read up on what the right
pH should be?

There is loads of info, just use google. A PH between about 6.5 to
7 is good.






b. I doubt that I have the time (sadly) or the experience (as yet) to
grow the lawn from seed so am planning to use rollout turf. Do the
comments you have made apply to that as well?


Yes. Establishing a lawn from seed isn't any more work. Maybe
less work. It just takes more time for it to grow and fill in.
Fall is the best time for seeding though. If you do it now you have
competition from weeds, need to use more water and it has less time to
establish before hot summer stress months.






FredAt

Not directly related to your question, but my experience is from buying a pH
Tester which came with a list of food plants, and what they need. Most are
slightly acid, between 5.5 and 7.0, but my garden was mostly 7.5. So I added a
few things, including sulfur.

I have not yet measured again or planted anything, but for many other changes I
am trying to make it grow better than last year, because half of the food I eat
in summer comes from there.

marvin

Marvin L. Zinn
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