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Making a new lawn from SEED

Making a new lawn from seed is certainly cheaper than buying turf and it also gives you more opportunity of choosing the grass varieties you want.

Seed mixtures are available for almost any situation in the garden and in various grades.

You should decide carefully before buying the seed, what the lawn is going to be used for.

If it is going to get a lot of heavy wear from children playing on it or you will not have a lot of time for maintenance, you should go for a hard-wearing grade.

A purely ornamental lawn that will have no wear at all and can be cut twice a week will mean that you can choose a finer grade.

An area that is shaded by trees will need a different seed again.

The best time to sow seed is late summer when you can expect some damp weather but the soil is still warm. Alternatively sow in mid-spring, but try to avoid dry spells.

The seed should be sown at about 1 ½ oz per Sq. Yd.

The area can be marked out into sections with string and canes if required but I have always found that this is unnecessary. If you stand with you feet wide widely planted and lean forward, the area that you can cover within reach is approximately 1 Sq. Yd., 2 handfuls of seeds scattered over this area evenly will give the right amount. This is quite a high sowing rate so accuracy is not too important. A handy seed sower can be made if required by using 2 9" flowerpots, one inside the other. By twisting the inner one slightly, the size of the holes in the bottom can be adjusted so that an even amount of seed comes out. By shaking this over the area the seed can be sown evenly. As a guide, if you are worried by accuracy you can measure out 1½oz of seed and sow over 1 Sq. Yd. beforehand to see what it looks like.

Once the whole area has been covered evenly, lightly rake the surface aiming to cover roughly half the seed. A spring tined lawn rake is the best tool for doing this. Remove any more stones that might be brought to the surface.

If birds are a problem, cover the area with fine net suspended on canes or place canes around the area with strips of plastic tied to them. Supermarket carrier bags are useful for this, or some people recommend tying black thread between canes in a crisscross pattern.

Try to avoid watering until after germination as it can wash the seeds into little piles and you can end up with bare patches. If you must water use a sprinkler that provides a very fine spray.

Once the grass has reached about 2" tall the first job is to roll it. This is called 'tillering' and is to induce more growth from the base, so thickening up the lawn. If a proper lawn roller is not available, use the roller on the cylinder mower but do not let the mower actually cut the grass. Tilt the mower backwards to lift the blades away from the grass to prevent this.

After a few more days the grass will have lifted up again and is than ready for it's first cut. This MUST be done with the mower set on its highest setting so that it only trims the very tops of the blades of grass. On subsequent cuttings the blades can be lowed each time until it is set to the required height. During the first year the lawn should not be cut too low or you may find bare patches appearing.