Tips on how to properly sow lawn grass at your dacha and care for it

Gardeners who decide to plant lawn grass with their own hands, rather than buy a ready-made roll version, should understand that the process of creating a beautiful green cover, including preparing the site and further caring for the plants, requires a serious investment of money, time and effort. In order to properly organize a green lawn at your summer cottage and maintain it in a healthy and tidy condition, you need to take into account the characteristics of the climate and landscape, the composition of the soil, the characteristics of different grasses and other points that we will discuss in the article.

To create long-term, high-quality lawns, grasses are used that form a uniform, mowing-resistant green cover with dense, elastic turf.

You should start with the intended purpose of the lawn. This will help you decide which herb seeds you need.

When should you sow?

The main seasons for sowing lawn grass are spring and autumn.
Each season has its own characteristics , which should not be neglected, so that the work is not in vain and the area is covered with a thick green grass carpet.

When sowing in autumn, work begins from mid-August to mid-September - this applies to the central zone of the Russian Federation. In other regions, timing may vary. Spring sowing work is carried out from late April to early June.

In exceptional cases, you can plant a lawn in the summer, but you will have to spend more effort to ensure good seedlings.

When is the best time to plant a lawn in spring: optimal timing

Planting a lawn in the garden can be done both in spring and autumn (during the entire warm period). That is, you can plant from April to the end of September.

The most optimal time for spring sowing: end of April, May . During this period, milder, wetter weather is observed, the necessary moisture is retained in the soil, but there is still no heat and scorching summer sun. And at the same time, with spring sowing, the grass will definitely have time to get stronger by winter.

The lawn should be planted in the spring at a soil temperature of +10°C and an average daily air temperature of 15 degrees Celsius.

However, if you want to sow grass in the summer, you can do this too, but you will have to water the grass more thoroughly and often.

Rules for choosing seeds

On the main territory of Russia, the climate is quite harsh, therefore, the choice of lawn grass should be approached responsibly, since not all plant varieties are able to withstand severe Russian frosts. The ideal grasses for domestic territories are cereal varieties, each of which has its own characteristics. Their root system creates a dense carpet on the soil surface, through which it is very difficult for weeds to grow.

1. The bentgrass is thin - it tolerates cold winters well and is unpretentious in care. This plant is often the basis of grass mixtures for lawns. Tolerates frequent haircuts and cold winters, and also displaces weeds.
2. Red fescue grows and develops slowly, therefore, a beautiful lawn can only be obtained in the second year from sowing. Unpretentious and does not require special care.
3. Meadow grass is a popular lawn grass, but it is slow to develop a root system.
4. Ryegrass – suitable for herbal mixtures. Sensitive to frost, therefore, more suitable for warm regions.

It is necessary to choose grass not only by appearance, but also by climatic conditions. There are shade-tolerant varieties of grasses for areas located in the shade, as well as special herbal mixtures for areas that are exposed to the hot sun all day.

Excavation

Before you start sowing the sports ground with grass seeds, you need to carry out the necessary excavation work. As it has already turned out, before planting the herbal mixture, a drainage system is installed, which must be well and tightly covered with small stones - gravel, crushed stone and sand. It happens in this order:

• large crushed stone;
• small crushed stone;
• coarse gravel;
• fine gravel;
• leveling with sand.

Strengthening the walls of the drainage pit will not be necessary. Each layer is backfilled at a distance of 20-30 meters to ground level. The stone layers are carefully compacted and well watered. It is important that the water drain be created with a slope to the collector. When carrying out it is not recommended to use limestone, since over time the material becomes less permeable to water.

Tools and accessories for sowing

In order to get a beautiful lawn, you need to properly prepare the area for sowing , and this will require some tools and equipment.

The main task of the tools is to help prepare the ideal soil structure for sowing grass, planting and compacting the seeds in the soil. This will help not to overspend the number of seeds and at the same time get friendly shoots.

Cultivator

The towed device (can be attached to a walk-behind tractor) is designed to loosen the soil and prepare it for the next stage - sowing grass. The cultivator is equipped with 10 cm wide paws that crush large clods of earth. This tool is used after the area has already been plowed or dug, as well as for loose and uncultivated soil.

Fan rake

The tool is used immediately before and after sowing grass to deepen them into the soil surface and increase seed germination. There are more modern devices for this purpose, but fan rakes remain a simple, cheap and effective tool.

Ice rink

A garden roller (roller) can have a solid or corrugated surface . The device is intended for leveling the area under the lawn, as well as for compacting the soil cover after sowing the grass and covering it with a fan rake.

Seeder

There are two types of seeders: manual and automated. The manual type of the tool is a frame on which a seed container with a metering shaft located under it is fixed. The handle that drives the seed spreader is connected to the disc. The mechanism has manual control. Manual devices are indispensable for sowing small areas or for reseeding seeds when restoring lawns, as well as for working on difficult terrain where it is difficult for a mechanical unit to pass.

The mechanical version of the seeder was designed for servicing large lawns with a flat surface.

This device is made in the form of a cart on wheels, on which is attached a large capacity container for seeds and a dispenser, which is adapted for seeds of different sizes.
Seeds are released when a special button is pressed . When using a mechanical unit, you can adjust the width and depth of sowing. There are models that cover the seeds after scattering.

Final preparation of the soil for the lawn

The prepared soil is fertilized with mineral and organic fertilizers. The latter are introduced in autumn and spring. Next, the soil is compacted. If you don't do this, running on the grass or moving the lawn mower will leave marks on it. The ground may also sag over time, causing sinkholes to appear.

Compaction is done with a special garden roller. Its main part is a hollow drum. The weight of this part is small and therefore the tool is easy to transport.

But if water or sand is poured into the drum through a special hole, its weight exceeds 100 kg. In the absence of a roller, compaction is carried out with feet, moving around the area in small steps.

Afterwards, the top layer is loosened with a rake, so that in the end the area looks like a dense cake with breadcrumb powder.

It is advisable to leave the planned area alone for several months, allowing the soil to settle. Based on where the earth subsides, it will be clear in which places more filling is required and in which the level needs to be cut off.

General rules and process requirements

In order for planting lawn grass to be successful, this process must be carried out according to certain rules. Before sowing, a number of preparatory measures should be performed:

• dig up the area and remove all weeds from it along with the roots;
• a week before the start of sowing, scatter mineral fertilizers over the future lawn and loosen the soil so that the nutrients penetrate deeper into the ground;
• mix the seeds thoroughly if several varieties of grass are used;
• the day before sowing, walk through the soil with a fan rake so that it is uniform and there are no lumps;
• using a rake, make small furrows in the top layer of soil;
• the territory is divided into 4 parts, each of which is sown separately: first they go in one direction - along the site, then across it;
• Seeds should be sown on the plot slightly beyond its borders (8-10 cm) so that empty spaces do not form at the edges.

Preliminary work before laying the lawn

This is the most important and troublesome stage in the formation of a lawn. After all, the more thoroughly you prepare the ground, the better quality your future lawn will be.

It is better to start activities in the spring, so that the grass stand can take root and become stronger in the summer:

• In an overgrown area, you will need to remove all foreign objects (garbage, stones, branches, etc.), uproot roots and stumps.
• After this, completely remove the weeds. For a more effective result, it is better to use continuous herbicides containing glyphosate (Hurricane, Roundup, Argument, Napalm), since it is impossible to remove all the roots mechanically, and you cannot leave even small particles - they will definitely germinate again.

The soil should be treated with chemicals at temperatures above 25 ºC in dry weather without wind and only on growing plants.

• Then you need to pour a generous layer of fertile soil and plow with it or properly dig the soil to a depth of at least 30 cm, breaking up large clods.
• If there is excessive moisture at the lowest level, make drainage from crushed stone or gravel. Dilute clay soil with sand, and sandy soil with compost. It is also important that the acidity is within normal limits: for lawn grass 5 – 6 pH. If the indicator is high, it can be adjusted by adding acidic peat, and if it is low, add limestone, dolomite or calcite.

• Then, using a cultivator and a rake, begin loosening and leveling the area. You should end up with a completely smooth area. You can use a wide board, dragging it edgewise along the surface, or a special roller. This will fill in all the depressions and smooth out the bumps.

• A few days before planting, thoroughly wet the soil. If puddles appear in some places, add soil there, otherwise later bald spots will form in these areas or moss will grow.
• Now apply mineral fertilizers to strengthen the root system and stimulate growth - best of all, a nitrogen mixture (nitroammophosphate) or a starter complex, which, in addition to nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, includes iron, zinc and other trace elements.
• Immediately before sowing the seeds, the soil must be compacted to prevent subsidence (for this it must be completely dry), and then lightly walk over it with a rake.

Step-by-step instructions for planting with your own hands step by step

You can sow grass at home only on a fully prepared area. The best time for sowing is spring - from April to June . You can sow by hand or using a seeder.

Regardless of the sowing method, you should walk over the prepared area with a fan rake, fluffing up the top layer of soil, while simultaneously creating grooves on the surface of the soil. The seeds should be mixed well, especially if they are caked. You can also mix them with sand. Each square meter should require from 30 to 60 g of seeds.

When sowing grass by hand, without the use of equipment, the seeds should be scattered in a wide fan, trying to ensure that the seeds fall as evenly as possible. This should be done in calm weather. The section is passed twice: along and across.

It is better to sow large lawns using a seeder . A mixture of lawn grass seeds is poured into the seeder hopper. The seeder needs to go through the area several times: lengthwise, widthwise and diagonally, so as not to miss areas.

After the area is sown, it should be raked over again and lightly compacted with a roller. After this, water the seeded lawn with water from a fine sprayer.

How to sow lawn grass is shown in this video:

How much does it cost to make a lawn?

The price mainly depends on the desired quality, since based on this, materials are selected and preparatory work is carried out. The specifics of the relief and soil properties play an important role in determining the cost.

A regular seeded lawn is the most economical, especially if you do it yourself. In this case, you will only have to spend money on plant seeds, fertilizers and herbicides.

On average, one hundred square meters of grass cover will cost 20,000 rubles. For comparison, a hydroseeded lawn will be approximately 1.5 times more expensive, and a rolled lawn – 2 times more expensive.

It is worth noting that with any option you can get excellent results. A reasonable question arises: why pay more?

Features in technology depending on the season

Let's look at the rules for sowing a lawn at different times of the year.

Spring

If you plan to sow the lawn in the spring, then the site should be prepared in the fall. The area for the future lawn is dug up several times , weeds are removed along with the roots, treated with herbicides and fertilized, leaving the soil alone until spring.

Grass sowing begins in mid-April, when the ground has already warmed up, but is still a little wet.

The soil is dug up again, loosened with a cultivator, leaving no large clods of earth, and sprouted weeds are removed. After this, they walk through the area with a rake, preparing it for sowing grass. Grass seeds are scattered by hand or using a sower. They go over the crops with a fan rake, lightly sprinkling them with earth, and roll them with a roller. After 2-3 weeks, the first shoots appear.

Summer

Summer is not the most favorable time for sowing a lawn , but if necessary, adhering to certain rules, lawn grass can be sown in the hot season.

1. 
   Prepare the soil for sowing. If the soil on the site is heavy, then it can be diluted with peat, sand and humus. It is useful to enrich sandy soil with black soil or forest soil.

2. Feed the soil with complex fertilizers - this will help the seeds germinate faster.
3. To ensure that the soil in which the seeds are sown does not dry out quickly, you can create protection against drying out of the top layer of soil. To do this, remove the top layer of soil by about 20-30 cm, cover the bottom with cardboard, and again lay the removed soil on top and compact it with a roller.
4. Go over the area with a fan rake, preparing it for sowing.
5. It is better to sow lawn grass in the hot season in the evening, when the heat subsides. Before sowing, the soil must be well moistened by spraying water with a fine rain.
6. After the water has soaked the ground, sow the grass by hand or using a seeder, covering the edges of the area well.
7. After finishing sowing, the area should be mulched with peat or dry soil to protect the seeds from the scorching sun.
8. After this, you need to walk across the seeded lawn with a garden roller to press the seeds to the ground.
9. To save the seedlings from the sun's rays, the crops need to be covered with white non-woven material - this will help reflect the rays and prevent overheating of the soil.
10. The lawn should be watered daily by sprinkling water with a fine rain directly on top of the covering. The material will allow water to pass through and will not allow it to evaporate quickly.
11. If everything is done correctly, the first grass will appear in 1-2 weeks. You can remove the covering from the lawn when the plants grow 3-4 cm.

Advice : do not feed young seedlings with nitrogen fertilizers; in summer they can burn the still weak root system.

Autumn

Autumn sowing of the lawn begins in mid-August - early September , so that the young grass has time to form before the first frost.
The site should be prepared for sowing in the summer: dig up, remove weeds and stones, and feed with complex fertilizers. Before sowing, walk around the area with a rake to fluff up the soil.

The next stage is sowing the seeds. After the area is sown, a garden roller is passed over it . As a rule, after 1-2 weeks the grass sprouts and before the onset of cold weather it has time to get stronger in order to survive the winter frosts.

Spring lawn planting: advantages and disadvantages

Gardeners practice planting lawns from April-May to September-October. There is no strictly recommended time; it is determined by personal wishes and the climate in the region. All the grass needs to develop is sufficiently warm soil, positive air temperature and watering in the required amount.

Gardeners who successfully grow a wide variety of crops in their garden plots often believe that there will be no problems with lawn grass, but there are some nuances here too.

But many landscape design professionals prefer to do this in the spring, citing the following reasons:

• Cold weather can only be expected in autumn. The grass will have time to take root and become strong enough. The conditions for its development are the most favorable. By autumn it will be possible to evaluate how successful the idea of ​​planting a lawn was.
• There is time to eliminate shortcomings. You can redevelop the lawn and sow seeds where necessary.
• The soil is moist in spring, saturated with melt water. This contributes to a faster and more friendly emergence of seedlings.
• When planting before winter, it is necessary to calculate the time very accurately. Either the seeds should “fall asleep” and awaken only in the spring, or the lawn should already germinate before the cold weather and become sufficiently strong. The grass will die if the young shoots are exposed to a thaw or the winter turns out to be light and harsh.
• When turf is seeded in the summer, prolonged drought is always likely. This means that the gardener will need more time and effort to regularly irrigate the plantings. In the process, seeds and shoots are washed out of the soil, and bald spots form.

There is only one risk during spring planting - possible return frosts. Mature lawn grass can tolerate freezing temperatures, but young seedlings may die. Therefore, in those regions where frosts in April and May are by no means uncommon, it is better to wait until the beginning of summer. The water consumption may increase, but you will avoid the death of the lawn already at the seedling stage. Focus on long-term weather forecasts.

Video: when and how to plant a lawn correctly

Buy lawn seeds from trusted manufacturers:

• Sports lawn is an ideally selected mixture of grasses that are resistant to mechanical stress, sun, wind, and intensive use. Such lawns are installed on courts, football and hockey fields, and children's playgrounds. Overgrown grass easily tolerates frequent mowing up to 2.5 cm. For normal lawn growth, it is very important to initially properly prepare the soil, carefully level the soil so that rainfall does not accumulate in depressions and depressions.
• The Sloth lawn has a universal purpose and quickly forms a dense, thick grass carpet. Over time, fragrant white flowers appear among the regrown greenery - this is clover, which not only gives the lawn originality, but also serves as an organic fertilizer. Clover is a natural green manure; the lawns on which this crop grows do not need nitrogen fertilizing.
• Shade lawn is produced for sowing in shady corners of the garden where other plants cannot develop normally. The grass grows quickly, does not stretch, and a dense turf is formed without bald spots. You can plant grass mixture for shade from spring to autumn, but no later than mid-September.
• Lawn Sunny - a special stable mixture of seeds for areas with excessive solar insolation and is characterized by increased resistance to heat and drought. Even in strong sun, the grass retains its freshness, bright color and elasticity. The lawn grows well on slopes with uneven terrain.
• Lawn Greenmaster is an improved grass mixture for sowing frost-resistant lawns. The mix includes meadow bluegrass; small leaf clover; perennial ryegrass; two types of fescue - red and reed. Sowing grass to obtain a lawn carpet is carried out twice a year in April-May and September-October. Regrown grass can reach a height of 10 to 20 cm. Seed consumption per 1 m2 is 30 g.

An easy way to plant and grow as quickly as possible

In order to grow lawn grass as quickly as possible, you need to choose a suitable grass mixture. Fast growing of grass is guaranteed by a mixture of three herbs:

1. 60% ryegrass;
2. 20% red fescue;
3. 20% meadow fescue.

For rapid germination of grass, the soil must be enriched with mineral fertilizers with a high content of potassium and phosphorus , which should be evenly distributed throughout the area. If the soil is sandy, then adding peat to it will help speed up the growth of grass, and if it is loam, then adding sand to it. The added components should be thoroughly mixed with the main soil while digging the area.

The area should be sown in a cross pattern and the soil moisture should be maintained in the first days after sowing.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages:

• The most active time for the development of any plants is spring. Therefore, if you want to quickly grow lawn grass, then this time of year is the most suitable for this purpose.

  By sowing grass in damp soil in the spring, you can get a green lawn already in the same year.

• Spring sowing allows you to timely notice and eliminate mistakes made when arranging your lawn. In a month, all the shortcomings in the work will be visible: missed areas and uneven sowing.

But spring sowing of lawn grass also has its disadvantages :

• the area for spring sowing will need to be prepared in the fall: cleared of debris, dug up, fed with fertilizers;

• In the spring, not only cultivated plants grow actively, but also various weeds, which will have to be fought very actively.

Possible mistakes

The process of sowing lawn grass is not complicated, but there are some features that lawn owners neglect when performing this work.
In order for sowing to be successful and the result to be a green carpet, the following points must be taken into account:

• choose the right herbal mixture, taking into account the specific climate of the region, the area’s exposure to sunlight and soil characteristics;
• the soil for sowing must be thoroughly cleared of stones, debris, and weeds;
• when preparing a site for a lawn, the soil must be enriched with fertilizers;
• Having prepared the area for sowing, you should wait several weeks to allow the soil to settle a little;
• you need to sow the grass evenly, using the cross method - this will avoid missing areas (bald spots);
• on hillocks and lawns that go downhill, more seeds should be sown, as they can be washed away by water into lower areas;
• if the roots of weeds were poorly selected before sowing, they will sprout and gradually begin to “clog” the lawn grass, preventing it from developing;
• Having sowed a plot, it needs to be moistened daily so that the water saturates the top layer of soil by 3-5 cm;
• using seeds of grass growing in wild conditions for sowing, you can get a hard and prickly cover that you cannot walk on with bare feet, and its decorative value will also be reduced;
• You cannot fertilize young lawn grass in the hot season or immediately after it sprouts - this can burn the roots of the plants.

How to sow the perfect lawn

The house is built, the tree is planted, the son is growing up - but the program of a good life still cannot be considered completed until you sow a lawn: around the house, under the tree, for your son. This article tells you how to seed your lawn, when, and what to do before and after. The material contains recommendations from FORUMHOUSE experts and users!

DIY lawn

It is very important to do everything “according to science.” The fact is that the advanced achievements of agronomy, with which the consultants of our portal work, make it possible to obtain an excellent lawn on almost any plot of land. By properly preparing the soil and choosing the right lawn grass, you will be simply destined for a lush green lawn in your yard. You should prepare for the fact that you won’t be able to finish sowing your lawn in a day, or even a week!

Preparing an area for a lawn: what you need to do

By carrying out a number of measures to prepare (cultivation, if necessary - creating a normal pH of the soil, eliminating perennial weeds, ensuring a good air-water regime) and leveling (leveling) the soil, we will subsequently save ourselves from tedious alterations, finishing touches, and most importantly - disappointments and hassle .

But first, it would be wise to spend time on a few, so to speak, pre-launch matters. Think about how your irrigation system will be arranged, do a soil analysis so that, if necessary, you can adjust it in the right direction. You can determine the mechanical composition of the soil yourself by doing the “sausage test”. It is also important to understand how illuminated the area under the lawn is by the sun - this will determine what kind of lawn grass to sow on it.

Lawn soil: doing a test

This method allows you to accurately determine the mechanical composition of the soil. Try rolling a sausage from a moistened piece of soil. If it rolls, it means you have loam. Now roll the sausage into a ring. A high-quality ring without cracks means that you have heavy loam or clay. A ring in the cracks indicates medium-heavy loam. If the sausage breaks when rolling, the loam in your area is light or medium.

Sodmaster, a consultant in the “Lawns” section on FORUMHOUSE, carries out the preparatory work in approximately this order: he roughly levels the soil, cultivates it, waits for the weeds to grow, kills them, and only then does the final leveling.

Preparing the soil for the lawn: leveling

The surface of a good lawn should be smooth and leveled, but this does not mean that it should be horizontal and flat.

Sodmaster Agronomist, consultant FORUMHOUSE, Moscow.

Leveling does not mean fitting everything into one plane, like a table. This means achieving the absence of microrelief - hummocks, holes, as well as a targeted layout that provides for water drainage.

That is, on a plot with a lawn there may be slopes, hills, and hollows. The area doesn't have to be level, but there shouldn't be anything on it that would interfere with the smooth movement of the lawn mower or anything that could cause your child to trip on it while running. Starting your lawn with a rough foundation plan, you will have to fill in all the holes and ditches, remove hummocks and tubercles, and level out all the uneven areas. The smoother the lawn, the more beautiful it is. And even if you sow the best seeds, you will not get a good lawn without quality preparation.

Preparing the soil for the lawn: surface runoff

Stagnant water is harmful to your lawn. If your site is waterlogged, it may require drainage, but providing surface drainage may be sufficient.

Sodmaster

I'm ready to make a lawn on the asphalt if water drains from the surface. But I won’t undertake to do it even on clean sand if it lies in a hole.

The optimal fertile soil layer for a lawn is 25 cm, the minimum is 15 cm.

If the layer is smaller, it is brought in and evenly distributed over the site. Uniformity is especially important and is the key to a uniform lawn structure.

Sodmaster

“Fertile” soil, which is suitable for vegetables and flowers, is not the best for a lawn. The lawn is better off with crumbly, sandy soil with a small amount of organic matter.

A properly prepared fertile layer should be underlain with a dense layer - FORUMHOUSE even has an example of a lawn that people laid out on a concrete pad. That is, all this should look like a duvet, which is laid on a hard bed.

Preparing soil for a lawn: loosening

Here are the activities carried out by FORUMHOUSE gartenriger at his dacha to prepare the soil for sowing. The soil is dug up to a depth of 20-25 cm, small areas - manually, large ones - using machinery. There are increased demands on the quality of loosening the top layer into which the seeds will fall. Ideally, it should be completely homogeneous, without large lumps, consisting of segments of soil the size of a grain of wheat. This is achieved by repeated raking; some even go so far as to crush the top layer with their hands.

gartenriger plowed the ground three times with a cultivator. Physically, this is not so expensive, but the effect is excellent - repeated plowing allows you to extract all the roots of perennial plants from the soil, and the most nutritious part of the soil remains in use. Next: a mixture of soil and fine sand was brought to the site. All this was leveled by hand, then rolled with a heavy roller.

Bonus from FORUMHOUSE: how to make a landscape rake with your own hands

The reference point should be the tool used by road workers to level the asphalt: this is a board measuring about 15 cm x 80 cm with a stick nailed to the center. Proper landscape rakes are made according to the same principle: a 20x100 cm duralumin plate has teeth 4-5 cm long and about 1 cm wide cut on one side, while the other side remains smooth. A cutting 1.8-2 meters long is attached to the center of the plate. That's all.

Preparing the lawn for sowing: removing weeds

The absence of weeds is one of the signs of an ideal lawn. It is often recommended to start a lawn by treating the area for weeds. The treatment is carried out on green leaves, using a proven and well-known herbicide - Roundup. However, consultants in the lawn section of our portal have emphasized many times that sowing a lawn is always an individual process, which largely depends on the characteristics of the site. Therefore, it would be more correct to organize it like this at the first stage (below is a list of necessary work):

1. Dig up the area;
2. Wait for the weeds to come out;
3. Treat with Roundup;
4. Shallowly loosen the soil.

After the death of the weeds, the FORUMHOUSE Sodmaster consultant recommends only fine treatment (3-5 cm). According to agronomists, deep processing should not be carried out for two reasons:

Sodmaster

1. To avoid bringing to the surface weed seeds buried under a thick layer of soil and therefore safe. 2. In order not to disturb the settled soil and not return to the beginning of planning work.

The point of treating with herbicides is to give the lawn an advantage over weeds at the initial stage, and then it will cope with them on its own, or, in extreme cases, with your help. And if you first treat the area and then dig it up, it may seem to you that there are even more weeds than there were.

Preparing the soil for sowing grass: leveling

You can think as much as you like about how to properly sow a lawn, but without leveled soil nothing good will come of it. The surface of the soil is leveled several times, because after each time it settles, and we should strive for an even fertile layer.

A prerequisite: before sowing, it will be necessary to compact the soil and roll it with a roller - in this way we can avoid unevenness, which will be difficult to eliminate later.

FORUMHOUSE user Ivanpost leveled the area with a piece of thick-walled pipe 500 on a handle, a piece of metal I-beam (120mm) 1.2 m long on a rope loop and a wide rake with blunt round teeth.

IvanpostUser FORUMHOUSE

The procedure is this: you roll everything, go in two directions with an I-beam (you pull it behind you), roll it again, rob the tubercles. Then you roll it up and plunder it completely for sowing. After sowing and loosening, I rolled it again.

Getting ready to plant a lawn: fertilizing

When the soil has been repeatedly leveled, loosened and rolled, all that remains is to add pre-sowing fertilizer to the surface layer. It contains some nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus; phosphorus is the main thing in pre-sowing fertilizer, because it stimulates the development of the root system in seedlings.

It is worth noting here that preparing the soil for a rolled lawn is many times easier than for sowing: it is often enough to kill weeds with herbicides, level the area without digging (fill in holes, cut off tubercles). If the height of the fertile layer is more than 10 centimeters, add just a little loose soil for good contact with the roll. The surface layer is filled with fertilizer. That's it, you can lay the roll.

Preparation for planting a lawn: immediately and to the maximum

An important point at which we will end the conversation about preparing the soil for planting grass: many of us have been sowing our lawn for years, gradually winning half a hundred spaces from the beds. This is a bad approach. You can sow some seeds into a bald patch, but it will be almost impossible to even out areas from different years. Neighboring planes can sag by different amounts and fall into different planes, but the lawn must be perfectly flat. Our experts recommend seeding the lawn immediately in as much space as possible, and then making paths, high decorative beds, flower beds, and so on. In Canada, a country whose lawns can serve as an example for the green lawns of many other countries, cottages and houses in cottage communities are sold with the territory rolled into a lawn. Then paths are trampled and laid on the grass, flowers and shrubs are planted, etc.

Sowing the lawn

It is recommended to sow a lawn at the dacha in the spring, and the earlier the better, but this is if all the work to prepare the land for the lawn is completed in advance. And if nothing is ready, and you are struggling to get the soil ready for the lawn, then it is better to postpone sowing until late summer or next spring. The end of summer, starting in the second half of July, is considered by many experts to be the optimal time to sow a lawn: there is time to lime the weeds and properly prepare the soil, and by the time frost sets in, the grass on the site has time to grow and get stronger and can withstand the winter well. A big plus is that you don’t depend on the weather at this time. In hot weather, the seeds lie quietly in the soil and wait for the rain; in the rain, lawn grass seeds germinate faster than weeds (in the spring, weeds always germinate faster).

Winter sowing also has its advantages: it often gives better results than spring sowing.

When sowing, it will be correct to assess weather risks and, if the climate is unstable, take this circumstance into account. It is definitely not recommended to sow the lawn after September 15 - the seedlings may be subject to severe frosts. Pre-winter sowing is not suitable for regions where a thaw of +10 or higher may occur in December. The timing of sowing also depends on what kind of grass you will sow your plot with: ryegrass sprouts quickly, and before winter you will have time to mow it, and bluegrass will just sprout by this time.

How to sow grass on a plot.

If the lawn grows to at least one mowing, you won’t have to worry about it in winter - the risk that the lawn will not survive the winter and will lose its appearance will be minimized.

Sodmaster

The best options are obtained in two extreme cases: if cold weather sets in quickly in the fall, and most of the seedlings appear in the spring, and if the warm weather lasts for an abnormally long time. The main danger is if weak seedlings fall under prolonged snowless frosts.

To sow 10 acres of lawn, you will need about a bag of bluegrass or other grass seeds, or you can use a grass mixture (at the rate of 20 grams of seeds per meter of lawn). For proper sowing of a lawn grass area, it is recommended to equally divide the entire volume of cereal seeds. Half of the seeds are sown evenly throughout the entire territory of the future lawn in one direction, then the other half is sown in a direction perpendicular to the one already sown. The seeds are raked into place, but not deeply, the depth should not exceed 1 centimeter. Here's advice from our consultant.

LawnmowerAgronomist, FORUMHOUSE consultant

If you are afraid of making a mistake, divide the plot into approximately equal sections, and, accordingly, sow the seeds in sections. Everything is by eye.

There is no need to water the lawn after sowing. After germination, instead of the first mowing, you can apply rolling, but only on sandy soil; A crust forms on the loam from rolling.

It seems that creating and maintaining a lawn is a complex and time-consuming task. This is true, but it is also not true. The lawn mower calculated the amount of working time spent over three years on basic activities: plowing, repeated cultivation, leveling, harrowing, fertilizing, regular mowing, watering, weed control. It turned out that for this entire period - less than two minutes per square meter.

Lawnmower

But “sow and forget” doesn’t work. The most important thing is to remember it, think, observe. This saves a huge amount of effort and money.

For anyone new to the turf business, we recommend checking out the large topic “Getting Started with a Lawn” on FORUMHOUSE. Also watch our video: a landscape designer gives a lesson on lawn care. Read our article on how to care for your lawn after winter.

When should it rise?

The main factor that influences the timing of the appearance of the first shoots is the type of grass chosen for the lawn. Different plants have different growth periods. Some varieties grow faster in the spring, others appear closer to summer . The germination time of lawn grass after sowing depends on the composition of the grass mixture.

Grain seeds, which are often used to seed home lawns, take 8 to 12 days to germinate. Since perennial grasses are used to form lawns, a green lawn will acquire a decorative appearance in 1-2 months.

Weed removal

To create lawns, special grasses are grown that delight the eye with rich colors and give pleasant tactile sensations. Any weed will spoil the impression, so it is important to get rid of extraneous vegetation.

Two methods are used:

1. mechanical. The turf is cut to a shallow depth and stacked with the roots facing up. After six months, the cut soil is used as humus: it is free of weeds and rich in nutrients;
2. chemical _ The area is treated with herbicides, for example, Roundup or Reglon. The poison affects the plants completely, penetrating through the above-ground part into the roots, so that after a few days the area becomes clean. When using pesticides, it is important to strictly follow the instructions, otherwise they may subsequently harm beneficial plants.

To avoid damage to lawn grass by the herbicide, sowing should begin no earlier than 6 weeks after treatment. During this period, weeding is carried out regularly, destroying the remaining weeds.

Sowing dates by region

For sowing, you need to choose a time when the snow has already melted, but the soil remains well moistened. Depending on the region, sowing dates may vary.

Some gardeners rely on lunar calendar dates when planting with their own hands. On these days, the chance of getting a beautiful green lawn is slightly higher than on others. The best dates according to the lunar calendar 2022:

• March 15th;
• 11 April;
• May 8, 17.

Sports turf care

A sports lawn, like any other, requires care. After the site is sown with a grass mixture, all that remains is to wait for the first shoots and constantly care for the green lawn. Caring for a sports lawn also requires care and attention, otherwise, over time, the area will simply turn into an unsuitable place for sports.

Caring for the sports ground includes the following actions:

• Cutting the grass.
• Watering (especially important during intensive growth).
• Weeding of weeds. No matter how the soil is prepared before planting grass, weeds will sooner or later make themselves known. The most effective, although difficult, is hand weeding.
• Feeding. For good grass growth, you should regularly fertilize the soil with mineral fertilizers.
• Cleaning. In autumn, it is important to clean the lawn of dry leaves and blades of grass. In the spring, in addition to cleaning the area, you also need to comb the turf.

In addition to these actions, proper care of the sports ground also includes timely repair of thinned and withered areas. To do this, it is necessary to sow quick-germinating seeds in the desired areas. But, reseeding occurs only after loosening and weeding the area.

It is worth noting that the first shoots will sprout already 10-14 days after planting. This is only possible if the conditions for tilling the soil and caring for the newly planted seeds are properly observed.