[jazzper]

So I bought a new house in oct 2016. Small piece of neglected grass in the backyard: weeds, bald/bare spots, edges rough, uneven in heights, etc. Just 8x3m (24m2 / 258sq.ft)

In 2016: I did nothing except mowing (decorating the house )
In 2017: mowing / scarified twice with a Gardena Scarifier rake (this), fertilized, seeded, etc. That helped but the small lawn still is not fine. I removed a sq feet and found some grubs. Not good. Probably the reason for some dead spots in the grass.

Than I saw this movie of Connor Ward on an offtopic website. And saw the logo on his shirt. I ended up here.
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PG6b_9rZJo[/media]

That inspired me to get into action

In 2018.
I scarified again (always fun to do: lot of back hurt but no moss and ground/grass looks immediately healthier) and did some mowing. Feeded it with 12-10-18 fertilizer (is this any good ratio?)

Last week I was a week away and in the end I did not mow for 2 to 4 weeks. Result:













Welcome to the jungle

I took my good old Husqvarna Diamant 33 (33cm/13") manual mower and mowed it two times (so long the max x % rule ).
Trimmed the edges, manually removed any left weeds at the surface (still some roots left I guess). And:



Not bad at first sight. But... Still...









Lots of troubles. Ground is sandy. I tried to seed extra last year but no impact. Didn't see birds etc. Probably bad seeds. No dogs in the garden either.

Will I ever get a Connor Ward like lawn?
Some questions:
- while mowing a lot of grass just bows with the mower and isnt cut. Dull mower or something else?
- what are the bald spots?
- I have a lot of strange long white single grass blade. What are these?
- any general tips to get up to speed? I want to beat the neighbour

Why did I mention it's an experiment? We are planning to overhaul the complete garden next year. The misses thinks it's bs I'm busy with the garden but I see it as my trial and error sandbox before the next episode of grass gets into it

 

[social port]

Feeded it with 12-10-18 fertilizer (is this any good ratio?)

It depends on your soil. If your soil isn't deficient in phosphorous and potassium, then you are adding those nutrients needlessly. Many of us get a soil test to help determine what we need to apply. I'm not sure what your options are in The Netherlands.

Will I ever get a Connor Ward like lawn?

From what I understand, it has taken him years to get the look that he has. It seems pessimistic to think it is out of your reach. I do think, however, that it is realistic to think it will take a long time, a lot of work, and attention to detail. If you are really into lawn care, then that means that you get to have a lot of fun.

- what are the bald spots?

It is really difficult to say. A good place to start is to get a screwdriver and stick it into the bare areas. You might find a large rock.

any general tips to get up to speed? I want to beat the neighbour

I think that a great place to start is here. https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1595

Welcome to TLF

 

[Richard Slater]

Welcome to TLF from a fellow European

- while mowing a lot of grass just bows with the mower and isnt cut. Dull mower or something else?

Reel mowers do not work well when cutting long grass; if you end up with 10cm+ of grass then you need to get out there with a rotary mower. If you look through the videos from Connor Ward, Lawn Care Nut, GrassDaddy and Lawn Tips you will see these guys cut their lawn regularly. To get the best out of your lawn cut off a small amount very frequently, and certainly no more than 1/3rd of the blade.

It's worth going over the Reel Mower Basics video that Lawn Tips posted a few weeks ago and doing the paper test:

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUartqPa_Lo[/media]

- I have a lot of strange long white single grass blade. What are these?

Possibly seed stalks or just where blades have grown with minimal light, do you have more of them towards the middle of the lawn?

- any general tips to get up to speed?

1. Mowing is the single most important thing you can do for your lawn, never cut off more than 1/3 of the blade - to do that mow high and frequently.
2. The soil under your lawn looks quite rich, that said the grass plant is a voracious beast that responds well to nutrients, make sure you feed the soil regularly; I am doing monthly applications of chicken manure at the bag rate at the moment to build up the soil; chicken manure it's the closest organic fert I can find in the UK to Milorganite in the US.
3. Spot spray those weeds, in the UK we are limited to a few fairly blunt instruments when it comes to weed killer. I use Vitax products generally and mostly spot spray weeds to stunt the growth, frequent mowing will then finish them off.

Given you have such a small space I would be inclined to do a full kill with Glyphosate in the autumn and then re-seed, we have quite a few seed houses in Europe, both DLF Trifolium and Barenbrug have a presence in The Netherlands and my experience of both of them is they are willing to sell and ship to private individuals at a reasonable price. As an example, I spent ~€40 on Kentucky Bluegrass (in Europe we would probably call it Smooth-stalked Meadow Grass or Poa Pratensis) from DLF and found it to be of top quality.

 

[j4c11]

I think the first order of business would be to get rid of what's there and seed some lawn quality grass. How much direct sun does that patch get? It seems to be surrounded by walls.

 

[jazzper]

thanks for all the input. Will do a close-read after work.

Regarding the getting-rid-and-seed again: we get a brand new backyard in a couple of months. It's more for fun and experimenting to play with the current lawn.

It get a lot of sun. Garden is south facing, walls are not that high.

 

[b0nk3rs]

I would work with what you have right now for some practice. Get into the habit of mowing regularly, work on a watering solution that can be automated throughout the day, and practice killing weeds. Once conditions are right you can glyphosate everything and do a proper renovation. I would NOT do this without doing some practice before hand. A reno is always harder than it looks.