Lawn device: selection of grass seeds, planting, care

Recommendation points

• Types of lawns
• Soil preparation
• Herbal selection
• Sowing
• Care
• Fertilization
• Watering
• Mowing
• Weed and pest control
• Diseases
• Aeration
• Scarification

The quality of the lawn depends on the correct preparation of the soil, the choice of a mixture of herbs suitable for the climatic conditions, regular watering, mowing and fertilizing. We must not forget about weeds, diseases and pests. Let’s talk about the correct arrangement of the lawn and about caring for it.

Types of lawns

Before you start a beautiful lawn on your personal plot, you need to decide on its purpose. The lawn is decorative, sports and special. Ornamental lawn is a parterre, landscape gardening, meadow and Moorish.

Soil preparation

1. The first stage of work – cleaning the area from debris, stones, fallen branches. Garbage should not be buried in the ground, bald spots may appear in this place in the future.

2. About 20 cm of the fertile soil layer is removed and removed to the side – it will still come in handy. The prepared site is dug to a depth of 25 cm, leveled, the remaining bumps and hills are cut off, the holes are filled up.

3. The third stage is preparation of drainage. A layer of gravel is poured onto the infertile layer and rolled with a roller weighing 100 kg, then a layer of sand – and also compacted.

4. The removed fertile soil layer is sieved through a metal mesh, stones, roots and stems are removed. The soil prepared in this way is scattered in an even layer over the tamped drainage and rolled with a roller. This is the simplest way to build a drainage system..

5. The next preparatory stage is regular, two-week watering of the soil. Watering provokes the growth of weeds. They are fought with a chemical method – they are sprayed with herbicides (for example, Roundup or Reglon) or harvested by hand. Withered weeds are removed.

Attention! Sowing of lawn grasses after chemical treatment is carried out only after 3-4 weeks.

Herbal selection

There are four main types of lawn grasses:

• field grass;
• fescue;
• ryegrass;
• bluegrass.

For each type of lawn, they add their own seeds, for example, for the Moorish – cornflower, poppy, forget-me-not, red flax. For landscape gardening – in addition to the indicated basic ones, a wheat grass, a hedgehog team is added. For a meadow lawn, rump, wheatgrass, timothy are added to the main herbs.

For sowing, use a well-chosen mixture of lawn grasses. It is better not to sow a grass mixture with a ryegrass content of more than 20% – it only lives for 4 years, like a field grass, after which the lawn begins to hurt. It is best to mix bluegrass and ryegrass, but not more than 10% of the latter. You can sow bluegrass fescue for a long-lasting lawn that can survive in damp, shaded areas.

Sowing

Before sowing, the plot is loosened with a rake to a depth of 2 cm. Grass is sown manually or with a seeder in dry and calm weather. The grass mixture is mixed with sand 1: 1, half is sown, scattering along the site, the other half – across.

Then the site is loosened with a fan rake and compacted with a roller. After that, the lawn is watered by sprinkling.

Attention! To protect the sown seeds from birds, the lawn is covered with a non-woven material.

Sprouts appear on the 7th day, after 3 weeks all the sown herbs sprout. The best time for sowing is spring to mid-May and summer: July, August. You can sow seeds before winter, in November, in spring they sprout together. On the packaging of the mixture, the manufacturer indicates how many seeds are required for 1 m² – usually 50 g of seeds. Observe this rate when sowing.

Care

Starting from March and ending in late autumn, the lawn must be regularly looked after – it will not be possible to lie on the lawn for a long time.

Fertilization

Lawn grasses require phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen. At the very beginning of the lawn growth, in May, after the first mowing, the first fertilizing with minerals is carried out. At this time, most of all, lawn grasses need nitrogen (normally 0.5 kg of nitrogen per 100 m²).

It is best to apply complex fertilizers: in order for nitrogen to be well absorbed by the soil, phosphorus and potassium must be present. The most optimal ratio N: P: K = 4: 1: 2, and in winter 1: 3: 10 – there is not enough nitrogen so that diseases do not develop, and potassium is ten times more to strengthen the root system and prevent plants from bursting from frozen water.

According to the established norms, the lawn requires 1.5 kg of nitrogen, 0.5 kg of phosphorus and 1 kg of potassium per 100 m per season². Top dressing is carried out in May, June, July. Sometimes, in addition, in August, they carry out another, half feeding with complex fertilizer.

When feeding, the soil should be moist and the grass dry. Watering is carried out only after fertilization. Fertilizers are best applied after mowing..

Watering

Watering the lawn is rarely necessary, but abundant, alternating with thorough drying of the soil. With abundant watering, a rich root system is formed, the resistance of plants to temperature extremes and diseases increases.

Watering is arranged 1-2 times a week, the required volume is 1 m² about 30-40 liters of water. With such a flow rate, water penetrates 15–20 cm deep into the soil – this is the norm. You can water in this way one day a week, or you can do it in 2 days and no longer water for a week, allowing the lawn to dry well.

It is better to water in the morning or in the evening, but with high humidity, evening watering is canceled so that moss and disease do not appear.

Mowing

It is necessary to mow the lawn, even neglected, weekly, but not more than 30% of the grass height. If you cut more, the herbs will be more susceptible to stress and disease..

The optimal height of lawn grasses (for garden and park lawns) for mowing is 7 cm. Golf lawns, for example, are mowed up to 2 cm.

The frequency of mowing depends on the growth rate of the grass. In dry, hot weather, or, conversely, in a cold lawn grows slowly. Lawn grasses grow especially well at a temperature of +20 … + 23 ° С, in such weather they cut the lawn once every 2 weeks. It is not recommended to cut the grass after watering or rain, it is heavy and tilts towards the ground.

For your information. The Moorish lawn is mown once – in the fall, leaving the grass 10 cm high.

Weed and pest control

Usually, if the lawn is well tended, it is difficult for the weeds to break through the sod-forming grasses (except for dandelion, it is removed with a lawn knife).

Moss appearing on acidic or waterlogged soils can cause problems. Moss also appears on soil lacking nitrogen. Therefore, you need to timely feed the lawn with complex fertilizer. Sometimes herbicides are used to control weeds..

The roots of lawn grasses love field mice, fight them in the fall, laying out poisoned baits.

Moles feed on earthworms and insect larvae that live in the lawn, dig holes.

They fight moles with traps.

Diseases

Often the lawn is affected by fungal diseases:

1. Powdery mildew is a disease of herbs growing in the shade. A white bloom appears on the stems, after a while the plant turns yellow and dies.
2. Snow mold appears in spring, after the snow melts – light spots are visible against the general brown background. The disease disappears spontaneously with the growth of grass, but severe damage heals slowly, they are noticeable almost until mid-summer.
3. With fusarium, the grass dries up, brown rounded spots are visible on the lawn, with a diameter of several centimeters to a meter.
4. With helminthosporium, leaves and roots are affected, this is manifested by yellowish spots of irregular shape.

Attention! A diseased lawn needs to be dried more often and watered less often. When feeding, limit nitrogen fertilizers and add potash and phosphorus in larger quantities.

Aeration

As soon as the first signs of the disease appear, aeration is urgently needed. Lawn grasses: fescue, bent grass, meadow bluegrass are prone to natural regeneration. Their roots stretch to the resulting voids in places of dead grasses, bald spots. To speed up the recovery process, bald spots are pierced with a pitchfork to allow air to reach the plant roots..

Aeration is carried out without waiting for the onset of diseases, for the prevention of diseases, for better development of the root system of herbs, normalizing the flow of moisture to the roots. The first time is in the spring, after the ground has completely thawed. If the lawn area is large, a mechanical aerator or aeration machine can be used, if not, a simple pitchfork is suitable. Approximately – you need to make 100 punctures per 1 m².

Scarification

For the formation of new buds and strengthening the density of the lawn, as well as for the prevention of diseases, scarification is carried out – combing out a layer of dead grasses or moss, dissecting the rhizomes with special blades. This event takes place 2 times a year: in spring and before the first snow.

Finally. The lawn requires close attention all year round. In summer, it is necessary to carefully and continuously look after him, and in winter – to make sure that the soil does not freeze, in a severe winter it was covered with a sufficiently thick layer of snow.