Ask Gerry

My lawn has a new type of grass growing in it. I dont know what it is,but it seems coarse and has seed heads and it seems to spreading. Can I kill this off? If so what would do the trick?

In a response to an earlier question you had recommended a Wildflower Lawn, rather than a Meadow, indicating a meadow might be a problem as Regards mowing. What is the difference. I thought that with a meadow, it only required cutting once or twice in the season.If this is the case, in order to minimise maintennance, I would opt for a meadow.

Years ago, when everyone used cylinder mowers, I was told to alternate lawnmowing directions; longitudinally one week, transversely the next. I can understand why this is desirable with a cylinder mower, but is it still needed with a rotary mower/lawn tractor on a relatively level surface? With my long, narrow lawns transverse mowing is a pain in the tractor seat!

Just moved into a brand new house and the lawn has grown well in places but completely bare in others. Its also full of weeds. Should I mow the lawn, kill weeds, reseed bald areas then feed lawn? or should I just rotavate & start again with the entire lawn?I'm a complete beginner to this but I want a lawn to be proud of!!! Any help you can provide would be great!!

4 years ago i dug up my back garden wich is quite large, & put top soil on it, i left it to my husband to seed it, i went away for 2 weeks when i came home weeds had grown very high..he never seeded it. so i left it like that..i cant bear to look at it anymore, its full of weeds and very patchy. what do i do? do i need to redig it all again? do i use a shovel or is there some kind of machine that can help me with this?

Is it too early to mow the lawn?

is it ok to mow even if there is frost at night time?

New grass seed put down three weeks ago. It's coming up great but in some places it seems to be dying off in patches. Is there anything you can recommend for this or should we dig it up again.

Hi Gerry, Merry Xmas! I am a new gardener and have rather large garden, i am starting from scratch and want to know the best time and way of making a back garden into a lawn. it is quite rough even though weve tried to keep it but the ones before us didnt!any help appreaciated, Thanks very much Siobhy

I have a very large area of lawn - almost two acres in a limestone area - which I have just had cleared of briars and ferns. Five years ago it was rich green grass but I let it go wild due to illness and now with the briars and ferns cut it is very bare. Will the grass grow back naturally - I'm too old to re-seed it - and what fertilizer will help this. Is fertilizer high in Phosphorous and Potassium such as 7/6/17 or even 0/7/30 a good type to use.

I would like to create a wild flower meadow in part of my garden, what do I need to do now to prepare for it? The soil is of poor quality with lots of weeds and rough grass.

Hi Gerry,We have recently bought the Flymo Pac a Shredder 2500. What a great piece of kit! My question lies with Phormium leaves. Does anyone know whether it is able to shred them? In the past our lawnmower has had to make a trip or two to the mower hospital when it got in contact with a formium leaf, do to its stringy make up. We are playing it safe at the moment and not putting them through it but it would be great if we couldLooking forward to hearing from you.Japonica

how to successsfully compost grass cuttings

Gerry
I have a new lawn for two years now and it is quite good quality.

I would like to work on it over the next few years to try to get it to a standard wher I could use it as a putting green.

Am I wasting my time.