"Cicero" wrote in message
. uk...

"boing" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hello,

Looking for some advice, for a few years now I have been trying to lay
a decent lawn with little success. The area has been for a very long
time home to all sorts of angry looking weeds and although I have
cleared them and used all sorts of toxic stuff, they still come back. I
don't need advice on how to get rid of them I've had all sorts from
experts up and down the country in 3 years. Now I am just fedup and
want to try something I've invented myself so here's the question (at
long last you say);

I'm not a gardner but I have used that black cloth covering stuff to
block out weeds around my boarders and that seems to work well. My plan
for the lawn is to dig it up (again) and lay some of the black covering
cloth down. Then I plan to put the turf right on top. The idea being
while the weeds can't get up the grass roots should be able to dig
down. I'm sure I'm have to water it very well for a while.

Will it work ?

Can anyone help ?

in a word no it wont you need at least a 4 inch root zone to allow the grass
roots to survive not sure what experts you asked but a twice yearly
application of a selective weedkiller followed by a spring weed and feed
will get rid of 95% of weed.

I don't know why so many people think I'm looking for a 100% perfect
lawn and perhaps I've got those other 5% weeds that just don't give up.

I have ivy, nettles and a thick something or other that spreads along
the ground covering everything it comes accross. I'll tell you how bad
this is, I've dug the area up twice and used the strongest weed killer
I could get my hands on, with proper application. I had to leave the
area 6 months the box said. After two applications within a month the
weeds where back up. Personally I think they are really growing this
Australia and I just keep killing off the end of the roots this end.
It's not so much the grass but the other plants that these effect. Once
they get in the boarders it takes hours to pull them out because the
get in everything.

I've taken on the commenta and thanks ofr taking the time but I've
really not heard anything to put me off trying this. No one has said
they have seen it fail and I don't mind normal everyday weeds in the
lawn.

boing wrote:
I don't know why so many people think I'm looking for a 100%
perfect
lawn and perhaps I've got those other 5% weeds that just don't give
up.

I have ivy, nettles and a thick something or other that spreads
along
the ground covering everything it comes accross. [
....]

I've taken on the commenta and thanks ofr taking the time but I've
really not heard anything to put me off trying this. No one has
said
they have seen it fail and I don't mind normal everyday weeds in
the
lawn.

OK, so you haven't got time for the upkeep of a lawn: no problem. You
don't want to pay somebody else to come in and cut once or twice a
week: fair enough. Believe me (and others have said the same
already), this means that, whatever you do to start a new lawn, it
will rapidly end up looking exactly the same as the one you've got.
You've _got_ to cut it regularly, or it _will_ go wild.

(Weedkillers kill weeds; they don't kill weed seeds.)

So are you positive that you actually _need_ a lawn? How big an area
are we considering? You can have a lovely paved area with a pond in
it, and assorted shrubs flowering all through the year, a few
containers nicely placed. You can have Japanese stone garden. You
could have a miniature woodland to stroll through in your rare
moments of leisure. You could have an orchard. There are plenty of
things you can do instead of a lawn, and they can all be much more
attractive than the best boring lawn in the kingdom -- which you
won't get anyhow.

Why not say roughly where you are? One of us might be able to come
and have a look at the problem if we're passing. I'm in Cheltenham.
(Hint.)

Mike.

In article .com,
boing writes
I don't know why so many people think I'm looking for a 100% perfect
lawn and perhaps I've got those other 5% weeds that just don't give up.

I have ivy, nettles and a thick something or other that spreads along
the ground covering everything it comes accross. I'll tell you how bad
this is, I've dug the area up twice and used the strongest weed killer
I could get my hands on, with proper application. I had to leave the
area 6 months the box said. After two applications within a month the
weeds where back up. Personally I think they are really growing this
Australia and I just keep killing off the end of the roots this end.
It's not so much the grass but the other plants that these effect. Once
they get in the boarders it takes hours to pull them out because the
get in everything.

I've taken on the commenta and thanks ofr taking the time but I've
really not heard anything to put me off trying this. No one has said
they have seen it fail and I don't mind normal everyday weeds in the
lawn.

Neither ivy nor stinging nettles will survive regular mowing, any more
than two or three cuts in one season will see them off. Weed-killers
will kill off most weed tops, but they leave all but the smaller weed
root systems alive to re-grow. If you are prepared to accept a small
amount of non-grass plants in you lawn, that can be achieved by a mostly
weekly mowing with a little extra at peak growing times. Keep your lawn
to a consistent height and it will do the rest of the work for you.
--
Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 23:19:31 +0000, boing wrote:
snip

No one has said they have seen it fail and I don't mind normal
everyday weeds in the lawn.

But I DID say in a previous post, I've seen it fail, very quickly and
at a spectacular cost (=A3500+) for the first lawn.

This happened to a work colleague of mine who got a cowboy firm to
turf 4 lawns, these cowboys did exactly what you propose to do and
laid black weed blocker before laying the turf.

It survived the summer of that year, got completely waterlogged
through the winter and only one strip of grass recovered the following
season the rest was just yellow.

Because he knew I was a keen gardener he ask me to take a look. Which
I did. On inspection I noticed black material around some of the edges
of the lawn and with a bit of help I lifted these and discovered the
problem.

I offered to help him take it all up and relay a new lawns, this took
2 weekends.

We discovered where the grass was still green an growing well was
where the "cowboys" had run out of weed blocker material.

It cost my colleague a further =A3350 and 4 hard days work.

But his lawn looks spectacular now.



Regards Jeff.

www.astrecks.co.uk

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