The Bane

LAWN

This lawn is the bane of my life. Every year there seems to be a different problem. Every year I come within a cat's whisker of digging it up. But I never have - not yet, anyway. Somehow, it always seems to recover. And I like the challenge of fixing it at least cost. It has become an old friend, an old passion of mine.

Looks a bit better, but not much. Gave it a quick comb through with electric raker five days ago. These tools are wonderful. It only took a few minutes. Would have taken me hours with a hand rake. Still much dead stuff left in. But I don't want it bare at this time of year; it would spend half the season recovering. I'm not really bothered by dead stuff, as it will rot down during season. At least the water can get to the surface now. And at least the moss has gone.

Not sure what is wrong with lawn, but think most of trouble could be due to prolonged winter conditions.

I gave it a heavy dressing of Autumn feed (with ferrous sulphate mosskiller) in February. I wanted to stop the moss in its tracks, as it was getting a hold again. Silly thing to do. I always wondered why we shouldn't apply chemicals in freezing conditions. Now I know! Matters were made worse because there was no rain to wash it in.

Normally we get some growth intervals in the winter, when the temperature rises above 6 deg C. This hasn't happened this year.

Might be some disease in lawn. Have decided to ignore this for now and leave it alone to see what happens.

I am trying to discover how to make it drought-resistant by growing deeper roots. Needless to say, I haven't quite got there yet.