What's happening to my lawn?
 

Over the last 4-5 weeks my rectangular, suburbian, lawn has been badly
deteriorating in the four corners. It'd been in place on a new estate
since May 2005 when we moved in; didn't have the same problems last winter,
and has been looked after by me.

The grass has gone really thin in a triangular area in each corner, and I
can see a lot of little mud spirals on the surface instead. The areas
affected are visibly growing each week.

I know that our whole estate suffers from leather-jackets, but from what I
read about that, this is the wrong time of year to see a problem from that.

On three of the four cormers, there is either a brick wall or 6' fence
abbutting the grass.
--
Neil

What's happening to my lawn?
 

On Feb 26, 6:17 pm, "Neil" wrote:
The grass has gone really thin in a triangular area in each corner, and I
can see a lot of little mud spirals on the surface instead. The areas
affected are visibly growing each week.

I'm getting dim memories of worm casts here, but I can't see how that
could harm the grass. Perhaps the thinning of the grass is making the
casts more visible, but the problem lies elsewhere.
--
Rob

What's happening to my lawn?
 

On 26/2/07 18:17, in article , "Neil"
wrote:


Over the last 4-5 weeks my rectangular, suburbian, lawn has been badly
deteriorating in the four corners. It'd been in place on a new estate
since May 2005 when we moved in; didn't have the same problems last winter,
and has been looked after by me.

The grass has gone really thin in a triangular area in each corner, and I
can see a lot of little mud spirals on the surface instead. The areas
affected are visibly growing each week.

I know that our whole estate suffers from leather-jackets, but from what I
read about that, this is the wrong time of year to see a problem from that.

On three of the four cormers, there is either a brick wall or 6' fence
abbutting the grass.


Go back to the person who sold you your house, MAKE them contact the
builders and ask them how they arranged drainage of the gardens. I'm
perfectly serious about this. Do it now.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)

What's happening to my lawn?
 

Sacha wrote:
On 26/2/07 18:17, in article ,
"Neil" wrote:


Over the last 4-5 weeks my rectangular, suburbian, lawn has been
badly deteriorating in the four corners. It'd been in place on a
new estate since May 2005 when we moved in; didn't have the same
problems last winter, and has been looked after by me.

The grass has gone really thin in a triangular area in each corner,
and I can see a lot of little mud spirals on the surface instead.
The areas affected are visibly growing each week.

I know that our whole estate suffers from leather-jackets, but from
what I read about that, this is the wrong time of year to see a
problem from that.

On three of the four cormers, there is either a brick wall or 6'
fence abbutting the grass.


Go back to the person who sold you your house, MAKE them contact the
builders and ask them how they arranged drainage of the gardens. I'm
perfectly serious about this. Do it now.

Don't you think that grass growing in a corner, surrounded on 2 sides by a 6
ft wall or fence might be weakened by bad light, and this coupled with the
mower scraping the top off as it's turning the corner may have more to do
with it than bad drainage?

And there are no building regulations WRT garden drainage, so any builder is
likely to say 'sod off', and rightly so.

What's happening to my lawn?
 

Go back to the person who sold you your house, MAKE them contact the
builders and ask them how they arranged drainage of the gardens. I'm
perfectly serious about this. Do it now.

--
Sacha

I'm aware of the drainage situation. In fact, we probably have 12-15" of
topsoil on top of a 5' layer of clay. Not ideal, I know, but standard on
this particular site. Close to both ends, there is a soakaway, and drainage
pipes too and I also myself layed a french drain down the middle of the
garden joining the two. The areas in concern, don't mirror where there is
either a soakaway, or not, In all the rain we had last winter, and some
bad spells many months ago, drainage has never been an issue.

Neil

What's happening to my lawn?
 

Don't you think that grass growing in a corner, surrounded on 2 sides by a
6 ft wall or fence might be weakened by bad light, and this coupled with
the mower scraping the top off as it's turning the corner may have more to
do with it than bad drainage?

I considered this, but in two or three of the corners, the light isn't
actually bad. It gets decent light for two-thirds of the day. They
weren't areas where the grass was ever particularly scalped either. It
still looks to me like these worm-casts are taking over. Maybe I can try
and take and post a link to a photo, if that would help.

Neil

What's happening to my lawn?
 

"Neil" wrote in message
...

Over the last 4-5 weeks my rectangular, suburbian, lawn has been badly
deteriorating in the four corners. It'd been in place on a new estate
since May 2005 when we moved in; didn't have the same problems last
winter,
and has been looked after by me.

The grass has gone really thin in a triangular area in each corner, and I
can see a lot of little mud spirals on the surface instead. The areas
affected are visibly growing each week.

I know that our whole estate suffers from leather-jackets, but from what I
read about that, this is the wrong time of year to see a problem from
that.

On three of the four cormers, there is either a brick wall or 6' fence
abbutting the grass.

I had problems of thin weak lawn that was constantly under attack from moss
and the like. It boiled down to winter conditions of lack of sunlight,
constantly damp conditions (not surface water as the soil drains well but
dews etc never drying out) and foot traffic. After several attempts to
remedy the situation I turned that areas in to far more productive paths and
raised vege gardens.

rob