Lawns will be lush and green all throughout summer with this gardening expert's three-step guide. The appearance of lawns can make or break a wonderful garden display. With rising temperatures and lack of hydration over the ensuing summer months, lawns can begin to dwindle quicker than you realise.
Three-Step Method for a Perfect Lawn
To ensure that your lawn is lush all summer long, gardening expert and TikTok creator Ish shared his three-step method for keeping the grass green for months. In a recent video, he said: “If you want a perfect lawn like I’ve got here, well, I’ll show you just how easy it is in three steps.” Ish wrote in the video's caption: "Today's gardening tips will show you my tried and tested method to reviving an old, tired lawn by introducing air into the soil, seeding and feeding it. Your grass has never looked better."
Step 1: Prepare and Scarify
Reviving a downtrodden and worn-out lawn doesn’t have to be complicated. First, you’ll need to prepare the lawn to ensure the grass is in good condition and remove any moss. Ish recommended using a lawn tonic or iron sulphate, mixed with some water in a watering can. Pour the mix all over the grass and leave it to soak in for a few days. This will help the moss “turn to crisp”, by which time, you will be able to start scarifying your lawn. To prep the ground, you can use an aerator, scarifier, or even a garden fork or hand rake. This is used to poke holes directly into the soil to help the water drain in. Scarifying is a lawn care process of using mechanical blades or tines to cut into and remove a dense layer of thatch - dead grass, roots, and organic matter - from a lawn. By thinning this out and removing it, the lawn's overall health is greatly improved, allowing better airflow, water, and nutrient absorption while eliminating any competition within the soil.
Step 2: Overseed
Ish said: “Once you’ve successfully butchered your lawn, you can now focus on overseeding, especially where there are bald patches where the weeds and moss were. And did you know you could get special lawn seed for shady parts of your garden? Now you do.”
Step 3: Feed and Water
“Leave the lawn to grow and in about four to six weeks, making sure you keep it fairly hydrated, and then after that, you want to introduce a good feed. Do this every couple months or so and your lawn will absolutely thrive. And if you’re feeling particularly lazy, do this in the rain. You don’t have to water it in then.” B&Q advises giving your lawn a good amount of water to help the soil absorb moisture. It also explains that the best time to aerate the lawn is one or two days after a rain shower, while the soil is moist. However, it’s best to avoid aerating lawns after “extremely” heavy rainfall, as the ground could become waterlogged. Once the lawn is scarified and aerated, you can add plenty of autumn grass seed, which is higher in phosphorus. This feed is focused on root development, rather than feeds which are higher in nitrogen, which is focused on the growth of the grass. Once you’ve done those three steps, Ish assured that you can enjoy your lawn “all summer long”.
