How to lay a lawn
Laying a lawn requires methodical preparation, and if done correctly will reward you for years to come. Lawns must be laid on 6” (15cm) of good quality, cultivated and lightly compacted top soil. Most established gardens will have perfectly adequate soil quality - though bear in mind that this may very well not be the case on new build properties. When bringing in topsoil, always buy screened and sterilised topsoil that complies with BS3882; whilst this unfortunately doesn’t totally guarantee that the soil is top quality, it should ensure that it is free of remnants of weeds, yet has a reasonable amount of organic content. Avoid cheap or ‘as dug’ topsoil. If in doubt, speak to a garden designer, landscape gardener or horticultural consultant who can help with this.
Once you have allocated the space where the lawn is going and removed any grass and weeds, you are ready to start preparing the surface. Removing unwanted grass and weeds can be done using some types of weedkiller, it is better if you can to do this job manually, and you can make the job easier by covering the area with cardboard for several months in the growing season to kill of the grass and weeds underneath; note that you will likely need to combine this approach with manual weeding and cultivation of the area. Rotovators are useful here, especially for larger areas, but you still need to address any unwanted plants and weeds to begin with. A landscape gardener can help you with this if you’re thinking it sounds like too much hard work!
Once you have a nicely cultivated soil layer, you need to gently compact it, and an ideal tool for this is an old scaffold board, or a couple of them. These can be lifted at one end and allowed to fall, and/or walked upon, or you can simply methodically walk in pigeon steps over the whole area. As you are compacted, you should use a stone rake to get the levels exactly as you want them - this is critical and is likely going to need to be done several times.
Once you start laying the lawn, ensure there are full rolls of turf around all the edges, and avoid having any slivers you have had to cut near any edges. As you lay the turf, do not walk on it, and use the scaffold boards to move around the area, and then to compact the turf after laying.
Once the whole lawn is laid, and compacted with the scaffold boards, you must ensure that no turf edges or joins are exposed, and you can use extra soil to fix this if need be. Then the whole lawn needs watering, and should be watered every day for two weeks, and then weekly for its spring and summer. Do not feed new lawns, save that for when they are well established. Give new lawns their first cut once the grass is about 6” tall, and just give it a light cut - just the tips. Then reduce the blades of your mower each week over weekly cuts in the coming weeks until you get to your desired height. A standard, mown lawn will be around 35-50mm height once established - but remember you might want to have a wildlife-friendly area of long grass…
Many garden designers, landscape gardeners and landscape consultants will recommend that once you have an established lawn that you leave some of it to grow long. Bear in mind that you must choose the area carefully, as the weeds will take hold in this part of the grass, and ensure you have mown lawn bordering the longer grass area so that everything looks designed and intentional. Long grass areas are one of the best things you can do for biodiversity in your garden, and is highly recommended.
To discuss garden design or landscape consultancy, give Tom a call on 0141 432 1141 or email on tom@tomangel.co.uk