Laying Turf - Preparing a new Lawn

Turf is still the number one choice for laying new lawns. It is an instant lawn that can be used fully in a matter of months - sometimes just a few weeks. Nowadays, turf is normally farmed properly, with good general lawn seed mixes resulting in a good grass - normally free of weeds! The days of turf suppliers contacting local farmers, to see if they have a meadow that is no longer required for sheep grazing are all but finished. Modern turf production entails choice of suitable seed, good growing medium and a well cut finished article.

Laying turf is the quickest way of getting a new lawn. The preparation necessary for laying turf is simple and often misquoted or misunderstood. Laying turf is simple, and here is how you go about laying a turf lawn.

Before you start, bear in mind that turf is not always as controlled as grass seed. Most grass seed that is sown will be subject to various regulations and standards. Turf can be variable - even from the same supplier at different periods.

It would be good to try and visit your supplier to see what is in stock - just to make sure that all the hard work you are going to do by way of turfing your new lawn will not be in vain.

1. There are a few thing to do before you go about laying new turf lawns.

Lawn Prep for Turf

After digging the ground over, the soil should be firmed; by treading all over the lawn area, until it is firm enough not to leave footprints. If you have not 'levelled' a piece of ground before - or even if you have! - A straight edge - here a scaffold board - will prove a useful aid.

A slight slope across or down the garden is never a problem - we are not talking about level as in spirit level. Basically the aim is for a lawn with no bumps or hollows.

Grade with straight edge, rake over, consolidate with feet, grade again with straight edge, consolidate with feet and rake to fine tilth. Repeat this as many times as is required to ensure you have a flat lawn, with no daylight showing beneath the straight edge timber. The heavier the timber the better - but watch your back. It can be very tiring if you are not used to this type of work.

Lawn Prep for Turf

Step 2

Lawn Prep for Turf

2. Needless to say - I hope - that this should all be carried out when the soil is most - or dry - but not when waterlogged - especially on heavy soils. Do not be afraid to stand on, or work from the area that you are levelling. The soil should have been firmed enough to withstand your weight!! After all, you are going to want to walk over your newly laid lawn eventually. Your footprint should be no more than a mark - not a depression!

The final operation in levelling your new lawn area, should be a light raking over the whole are to double check the level of the lawn, and to provide a good surface - not too compacted - to enable the turf roots to penetrate.

Step 3

Lawn Prep for Turf

3. When you are ready for laying your turf to form your new lawn, work forward - preferably from a few scaffold boards or even a sheet of shuttering plywood - laying the turf in front of you. Don't run about on the new turf with a wheelbarrow though. But it is ok wheeling on the scaffold board. Do any necessary fine adjustments to the 'levelling at this stage. If you feel a bump or a hollow beneath the board, sort it out. If the turf is to be wheeled any distance in wheelbarrow, then make sure that you have enough scaffold boards before you start. Do not wheel the wheelbarrow on the newly laid turf - not even if you have a ball barrow.

If you can, try and lay the turf so that they are staggered - as with brickwork. However, this is NOT absolutely essential. If you lay the turf staggered or butted up against each other, you will still end up with the same combined lengths of individual turf joints. A simple overlap will suffice.

Step 4

4. As above - just take your time. Simply moving the scaffold board forward and working from it, will be enough to settle the turf in. There is no need to beat the daylights out of it. This only loosens it as it bounces up and down!. A good watering, after the turf has been laid, will be all that is required to settle the turf into close contact with the soil underneath. As you walk the boards, you will 'feel' or sense if there are any hollows underneath. Don't be too eager to finish and ignore these last minute adjustments. Have a bucket or so of fine soil - or soil and sand mix to do the fine adjustments to hollows as you proceed.

Lawn Prep for Turf

Once the turf has been laid, treat it with a bit of respect. A good watering after laying, will help the turf settle down and start the rooting through process. If you carefully lift a corner of one of the turf after 4 or 5 days, you will probably see first signs of new roots growing from the turf. This will depend a little on the weather conditions and temperature. (If you lay your turf in winter, it probably won't start rooting until its bed warms up in early spring.

You can walk upon it right away; but please, no football or the like for a few weeks. (Even if you do feel that the England team might call upon your services!)

Make sure that you cut the grass as soon as it is long enough - even after a week if necessary. Make sure that the mower is sharp, and lift the blades to their topmost height for the first two cuts.

If the new turf separates and forms cracks in hot weather, brush a little soil or sand into the cracks and keep watered. If you find that the lawn has 'settled' into a few small dips, lift the turf off the area that has sunk, and bring the soil back up to level with a little bit more soil.

Step 5

5. If your garden soil is 'heavy' then don't be afraid to incorporate a fair quantity of sharp sand. It can be incorporated into the soil by piercing with a fork. This will give better drainage, and help the lawn in play areas and areas of hard use. The application of a layer of sharp sand will probably be beneficial to most new lawns. Essential if the soil is heavy and sticks to your boots.

Lawn Prep for Turf

Other than its horticultural benefit, a 'sanded' lawn surface is a dream to level - providing that you are not filling hollows that are more than an inch (25mm) deep. By laying a layer of sharp sand over the area, you can get the lawn more or less perfectly level with either the straight edge - or the back of a 'landscape-size' rake.

Follow on Social

Related Products

Garden Wheelbarrow Pneumatic Tyre

Aluminium Landscape Rake

Manual Push Rolling Drum

JT Atkinson Bag 25Kg Sharp Sand

Lawn Prep for Turf

Advert

Facebook

GardenSeeker

Follow @GardenSeekerG

Tweets by GardenSeekerG

Our Youtube Videos

Japanese Maples by GardenSeeker

extra-advert1

Most read lawn care articles are

Spring Lawn Care

The First Cut

The spring season is an important time for getting your lawn into top shape for the following months. What you do now in the spring by way of lawn care, will determine how well your lawn will cope with the wear and tear of day to day use, and also its ability to withstand drought or even water-logging during the summer months.

View Spring Lawn Care

Lawn Care. Advice and Information How to look after your lawn.

Lawn Care Main

Lawns take up a lot of time compared with most aspects of the garden. In spite of the time and care lavished upon lawns, many fail to live up to expectations. Maybe the expectations are too great to start with. Problem being, that next door and surrounding areas seem to have better lawns!

Throwing money at an established lawn or patch of straw is not always the best way forward - neither the most successful in terms of attaining the quality lawn that you want. It is always a good ide to take a step backward, to see what the problem really is with the lawn. More often than not it will be something to do with your lawn care regime.

View Lawn Care. Main Advice and Information

Lawn Aeration

Aeration core from lawn aerating operation

Lawn Aeration

Not all lawns need aeration; but most do! Soil Compaction drives air out of the soil. A garden lawn is probably the most hostile environment provided by gardeners in furtherance of obtaining a beautiful garden. This is one reason for aerating a lawn. No other plant / grass are subjected to such willful abuse than the grass on the garden lawn, it needs care!

View Lawn Aeration

Top Dressing Lawns

Top Dressing of Lawns is beneficial. It encourages new basal growth of the grass plants - giving a thicker sward of grass. Top Dressing is also a good way to 'level out' the bumps and hollows in an uneven lawn.

Top dressing is normally carried out in mid spring. It can be done at any time in the growing season (March-October), but a dressing in the spring soon 'disappears' under the resultant lush lawn growth. Earlier in the growing season - but not in the autumn - a suitable fertiliser or feed can be added to the top dressing to give that little bit extra.

View Top Dressing Lawns

Lawn Problems

There are many and varied problems associated with keeping a good - or even reasonable - lawn. Quite often the problems are caused by something quite simple. That is, if you know what to look for! Describing a lawn problem seems to be beyond many of the people who write emails to me for help. A brown spot is a brown spot is it not? Well, err no, not always.

View Lawn Problems

Bumps in the Lawn

Ok! Let's get one thing right, straight away. You do not get a level lawn by using a roller. Using a roller, simply gives you hard bumps and hard hollows - and all the bits in between.

In fact, unless you are going to carry out all of the other operations necessary for a first class lawn, you can get rid of the roller altogether - although I might concede that it is useful for a light run over before the first cut after the winter.

View Bumps in the Lawn

Brown Patches in Lawns

There are several causes of brown patches on lawns and other bare areas on the lawn, some are outlined below... Broadly, lawn brown patches can be split into three categories - depending upon the size of the patch. Recognising the size and shape of the patch - simple you might think - can go a long way in identifying the cause of the brown patch. I have had mails in the past where the write has claimed to have brown patches on the lawn, when in fact the entire lawn was brown - killed off by the wrong use of a certain weedkiller!

View Brown Patches in Lawns

Lawn Moss Killer

If you really want to eradicate moss from your lawn, then you have to find out the actual problem that is causing it, rather than just treating it. The reasons are various, but not too difficult to isolate.

They can be one or several of the causes outlined below.

The latter is also available as a ready to use 'Moss Gun' for small patches. Neither do anything by way of treating the basic problem of moss in lawns. They simply are simply Lawn Moss Treatments - killing the moss which is there. It will return. You can alsouse lawn sand

View Lawn Moss Killer

Moles !!! in your Lawn

Moles in your Lawn

Moles are one of the most frustrating of all garden and lawn pests! They are rarely seen, but can cause absolute mayhem. The damage they do to plants is minimal, but if you are unfortunate enough to have moles in your garden, they will cause you more angst than an infestation of aphids! The main problem being, that they are so difficult to get rid of, and you normally see the damage they do, before you realize that you have a mole or so!

Cute little things they might be, but if your lawn is your pride an joy, or if it is just a nice lawn to sit and relax, the molehill trademark will soon turn you against them! One mole can wreak havoc in the garden, but a few and you have a potential disaster.

View Moles in your Lawn

Fairy Rings in Lawns and Turf

Fairy rings in lawns normally start to show up in late spring or mid-summer. They then carry on growing right through until the autumn and usually into subsequent years. They are easily recognised by either of two or both trademarks. Once they have started, they will be visible throughout the year.

They are most commonly seen as dark green circles of lush grass in the lawn usually after they are a half a metre or so across, though they are visible at first as a tuft of dark green grass.

The Fairy rings may also be first noticed as a group of toadstools manifest in mid-summer. (Sometimes without the dark green grass!) Not all toadstools in the lawn are as a result of Fairy Rings.

View Fairy Rings in Lawns and Turf

Dogs Fouling Lawns | General problems

The main problem with dogs on lawns is that of the brown patches caused by bitches urinating. Male dogs are not such a problem in this respect, for they do it differently..

The brown patches tend to be a circular patch with bright green grass growing around the perimeter as the bitches urine eventually breaks down to Nitrogen, which then feeds the area outside the actual damage. The brown patch is basically scorching - similar to that caused by applying too much fertilizer - especially in dry conditions.

Treatment by soaking the area with water - immediately after the bitch has done the deed! Soaking the brown patches after they have formed will be absolutely essential if you are going to over-seed the patches.

View Dogs Fouling Lawns | General problems

Lawn and Garden Edging

Garden lawns have to stop at some point, often causing a minor problem as to how to end or edge your garden with your lawn. Much will depend upon the style of your garden, but you will also have to take into account basic things like, the type of lawn mower you want to use, and even the basics of, how much time do you want to spend giving your lawn a neat finish!

It is not normally a good idea to simply end your lawn at the boundary of your garden edge; against a wall or fence. This will inevitably lead to either additional maintenance work - or an untidy finish, where the mower blade cannot quite get to the edges of the turf at the garden border edge.

View Lawn and Garden Edging

Feeding Lawns

Feeding a lawn is a relatively simple operation, but so many get it wrong, or do it when it it not necessary! Here's how and when to do it; and what to use.

Each of the aspects are important. Do it at the wrong time and you could end up with a weakened lawn. Use the wrong feed and scorching or unhealthy grass can result.

The process that causes most problems, is simply that of putting your fertiliser on the grass! Uneven application leads to a patch lawn at best, and a ruined lawn at worst!

View Feeding Lawns

Lawn Thoughts

The big sign outside the garden store commanded WINTERIZE YOUR LAWN.

I've fed the lawn: I've watered the lawn: I've mowed the lawn: raked it and watched a lot of it die anyway. Now I'm supposed to winterize my lawn? I hope it's not too late.

Grass lawns have to be the stupidest thing we've come up with outside of the IRS! We constantly battle dandelions, Queen Anne's lace, thistle, violets, chicory and clover that thrive naturally, so we can grow grass that must be nursed through an annual four-step chemical dependency.

View Lawn Thoughts