[Robby501]

Hello everyone, great to meet y'all, I'm a stone cold newbie here, only my second post....

I live in SE England just away from London, we are just coming out of our cool season, so hoping this is the correct forum I am posting in....

Just a brief background info...
I only started taking a keen interest in my lawn in March last year. I naively made the silly mistake of over-fertilizing a lawn that was full of moss and thatch and after an ensuing spell of dry weather the lawn looked pretty wrecked. Then last fall
I undertook a thorough scarification by hand using a sprung rake over a 3 day period. I removed approx 8 sacks of debris, moss and thatch and although the lawn look very bare, a sparse amount of healthy(ish) grasses were left behind.

I live alone with my elderly mother whom took great pride in the lawn, but due to surgery can no longer tend to it. I felt real bad after wrecking the lawn last year and after scarifying last fall, I promised her it would all come good for this year, no expense spared...

Anyway, the good news it that the lawn seems to have recovered beyond what I could have ever hoped for so far, aided by much better weather conditions than last year, plenty of moisture and warm spring sunshine. After doing quite a lot of localised re-seeding and feeding with the CORRECT amount of lawn feed, things are now looking real good!

Anyway, I am now wondering whether it could be the right time to mulch because there appears to be many strands of growing grass that has a 'seeded' appearance to it (photo) and I am thinking that by mulching this into my existing rapidly-recovering lawn that this seed might establish itself during the rest of the growing season, resulting in added thickness and texture to the lawn itself?

As I understand it to be, mulching is mainly done to improve nitrogen content of the soil, but this extra seed that is growing on my lawn must surely not be wasted either, should it??

Thanks folks....

 

[mmacejko]

They only time I bag the clippings is first mow in spring and if for some reason (weather, vacation) I miss the opportunity to mow and lawn is too long. Mulch those seeds in. It's full of good nutrients. Unless you suspect POA A.

 

[gardencityboy]

Welcome to TLF.
From what I can make out from the picture is that you are having Poa annua, experts can pitch in.
This seeds are from a weed and not your turf. Did you apply any fall pre-M last year?

 

[probasestealer]

It's difficult to tell from the photo exactly what the flowering grass is. I do wonder about Poa annua, which is a nuisance here in the states. Likely what is there now is just "flowers" where seedheads will eventually develop. I think it's fine to mulch mow, the seed/flowers are going to fall off anyway. Mulching does provide a small trickle of nitrogen and organic matter to the soil.

I don't know enough about your climate or area to know about your common weeds and disease problems.

I think if you'll spend some time reading on the forum you will find some useful information.

 

[Robby501]

Thanks for your prompt replies thus far, folks!

I haven't done any research thus far on what types of grass my lawn consists of, but it seems there could be more than one. Some grass blades are fairly straw-like and broad, while others are thinner & wispy. My lawn also seems to grow at an uneven rate thus far with some species of grass growing faster than others, although the newly-seeded areas I did recently are coming up really well!

I have no pre-existing problems with weeds or clover, the only problem I seem to have encountered up to now is moss which I have now completely removed after treating first. The Evergreen branded 4-in-one formula I used recently during a prolonged wet spell seems to have worked real well on the moss and has greened up the grass really well I feel...

It's still quite early in the growing season in my location, but this 'seeding' effect I notice has happened every year at around this time and lasts for about 6-8 weeks. I have seen the same thing happen on my local golf course, especially on the greens which I think consists mainly of poa-A, although obviously everything is cut a lot shorter.

From what I gather, US grasses can be pretty different from those here in the UK....everything seems to look a lot more thick, spongey and springey over there?

I'm pretty excited at the prospect of seeing further improvements as the season progresses and I am actually pretty staggered and pleasantly surprised at how well grass has the ability to recover so well & quickly from being initially in a poor state. I joined here with the aim of learning a lot more about this new hobby of mine and also because I want to avoid making any more silly mistakes that caused me my woes last year.

As Probasestealer suggests, I think I need to look around the forums a bit more to take in more information before I start any new topics, but all your input thus far is much appreciated!

 

[Robby501]

 

[probasestealer]

I think the yard looks great. If you're happy with it, that's really all that matters.

Mow! Mow! Mow!

Also, I wasn't implying you shouldn't start any new threads.

 

[Robby501]

Hey thanks for your compliment, probasestealer. Yes the yard does look good, but all that is due to my mother's 20+ years of hard work previously and some professionals we hired to shape the hedges. It is now my job to at least try to maintain it all due to my mother now being too old & frail to continue doing it.

It's the lawn I'm particularly keen on getting right this year. I;ll definitely mow tomorrow on a generously high blade height to err on the side of caution until the newly re-seeded areas fill in more. I must say that I am finding working on the lawn very fulfilling and enjoyable.

Yes sorry I worded it a little wrong when I said about not posting til I have looked around the forums some more.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your day .

 

[Alpine]

Welcome to TLF! Your yard looks fantastic. As you know the mature shrubs don't come easy and they are a focal point. Regarding the lawn I would mulch as much as possible to return the nitrogen and organic matter back into the soil. The only time I bag any clippings is when there are weed seeds and I want to dispose of them - typically early spring. I think you are off to a splendid start.

 

[Robby501]

Thanks Alpine for your kind and helpful remarks. Since I wrecked my lawn last year due to over-fertilizing and failure to de-thatch (until October) I have been pretty astounded at the ability the grass has had to recover to where it is now. Ahh yes, I forgot to mention, I also aerated 3 times during the wet season after being lucky enough to find a spring-loaded lawn spiker during a visit to my local rubbish dump, so maybe that helped as well! My lawn is still soft enough to aerate again so maybe I'll do so after the next cut.
It's great to be on board here and thanks for welcoming me to the forum.

 

[Robby501]

Welcome to TLF.
From what I can make out from the picture is that you are having Poa annua, experts can pitch in.
This seeds are from a weed and not your turf. Did you apply any fall pre-M last year?

Hi buddy,
Sorry, not sure what you mean by 'pre-m', the only thing I did last fall was a thorough scarifiation and some aeration throughout the winter/early spring.
As I mentioned in other posts I made here, I am pretty darn pleased with the way my lawn has recovered this year, just want to press on now, learn more and get the lawn as good as possible during the remainder of the summer.
Interested in your comment about the seeds being caused by a weed. I just performed a mulching cut which turned many of these seeds back into the lawn along with the clippings so am hoping I haven't spread them around if indeed they are originating from some kind of undesirable weed.
Thanks for welcoming me to the site :thumbup:

 

[Suburban Jungle Life]

pre-m = pre-emergent. It is a chemical which stops seeds from germinating. Most are not selective and stop all seeds but there a few which are and let grass seeds germinate but stop most weed seeds.

 

[gardencityboy]

Welcome to TLF.
From what I can make out from the picture is that you are having Poa annua, experts can pitch in.
This seeds are from a weed and not your turf. Did you apply any fall pre-M last year?

Hi buddy,
Sorry, not sure what you mean by 'pre-m', the only thing I did last fall was a thorough scarifiation and some aeration throughout the winter/early spring.
As I mentioned in other posts I made here, I am pretty darn pleased with the way my lawn has recovered this year, just want to press on now, learn more and get the lawn as good as possible during the remainder of the summer.
Interested in your comment about the seeds being caused by a weed. I just performed a mulching cut which turned many of these seeds back into the lawn along with the clippings so am hoping I haven't spread them around if indeed they are originating from some kind of undesirable weed.
Thanks for welcoming me to the site :thumbup:

I had a very bad infestation of poa annua in my lawn and it looked exactly like the picture you posted. Poa annua are annual winter weeds and will die in summer, but before they die they will produce seeds which will germinate in fall. I bought my house in Nov and the previous owner never put down a pre-emergent in fall causing poa anuua infestation. This year I will apply pre emergent in fall which will avoid any fallen seeds from poa annua from germinating.

You can look into the weed ID thread if the seed grass is indeed poa anuua, You can pull out one of them and post a picture and experts can ID it. Poa annua will have very shallow roots system.