Lawns Created With Seed

When it comes to creating a lawn from scratch, there are really only two options open to us. We can either grow the lawn ourselves on our prepared area of soil, thus creating our own turf, or we buy in a turf which has been grown by somebody else and put that down on our prepared area of soil.

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Which ever option you choose, as is ever the case, there are advantages and disadvantages for either option.

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Buying seed from a garden centre may give you proprietary brands made up from seed mixtures that the brand owner considers will suit a variety of situations and intended uses. If you were to approach a more general seed merchant with a request for a seed mixture for a lawn which was capable of withstanding rough and tumble, football etc., but would still give a presentable appearance quite quickly afterwards for a shady, damp site in a North facing position, then the choice of grass species could be more accurately chosen to be able to cope with your specific circumstances. 

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Similarly with turf it depends upon your intended use as to which turf you will need to buy. Once you have resolved that first choice the next consideration is the level of preparation that you need to go to.

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The cost of seed per square metre will be much less that the cost of turf. However, the level of preparation will have to be better.  You will need to cultivate the soil to a depth of at least 15 Cms (6 inches), and rake it to form a mowable surface, firming it down as you go and raking off all stones and debris greater that say 10/15 mm (0.5 inches). Once that’s done add a pre-emergence fertilizer and rake that in. Then you can proceed to sow your seed mixture at the rate of approximately 35 grams/square metre, and gently rake that in.

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Germination is likely to take maybe 10 days and will show itself like this.

Once it’s grown to about 50/75mm (2/3 inches), roll it and this will encourage it to thicken and also pushes stones into the soil. Then on reaching 100 mm (4 inches), cut it by reducing it by half its height. Continue in that vane whilst it establishes itself.

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There is one thing that you can guarantee if you cultivate a piece of ground, and that is weed seeds in the soil will also germinate. So often a Spring sown lawn will be swamped by weeds. However, the rate at which weed seeds germinate reduces as the growing season subsides in the autumn months, and consequently therefore, so does the likelihood  of a vigorous germination of their seeds. Grass however is not so obviously effected in this way, so I would always recommend an autumn sowing. If you time it right, you’ll go into the winter with a newly established lawn.