Care for your Lawn

Preparing Soil before Seeding

Soil should be carefully prepared well enough in advance before seeding. To optimally grow up, the turf needs a layer of very good sandy soil or a special turf-supporting base, with a vegetation-layer height of 10 - 15 cm. Unless the soil conditions allow for a natural high-quality substrate, we recommend siliceous sand to be used with a particle size of 0 - 2 mm to be mixed with the existing soil.

Seeding:

Grass can be seeded during the whole vegetation period. Nevertheless, each period is a bit specific to comply with during the seeding. It should be followed by use of a lightweight roller to slightly press grass seeds into the base.

Spring seeding:

This period is really suitable to seed turfs because of natural precipitation in sufficient quantities to support the growth and development of the lawn. There is a lower risk of high temperatures that might occur for a short time. Nevertheless, if they occur, the turn must be given additional watering to eliminate the grass seeds germinating to get dry.

Summer seeding:

The summer period brings more risks. That’s why the seeding period shall be immediately followed by irrigation during the whole germination time and the lawn growing up.

Autumn seeding:

Thanks to a higher precipitation rate and still relatively higher temperatures, the autumn period is good to install turf. There is a smaller risk of having a dry autumn. But if this happens, the turf must be irrigated enough. The after-seeding care shall involve use of a fertiliser with higher nitrogen and phosphorous contents to support fast growth of the turf to be ready for wintering.

Irrigating

General principles for good watering:

Watering period – morning hours
Dosing – higher doses of water in 3 applications a week
Lawn’s need for water a week – 20 to 30 l per m² according to the season

Irrigation after Seeding:

The water dosing is different from classical application on germinating turfs. When being seeded, the turf must be irrigated with smaller water amounts and in shorter intervals, for example 5 times a day. This application will provide for sufficient humidity for seeds and their germination. If applying a one-time higher water amount in the area, there is a risk of washing out seeds. The water dose is not efficient in this stage of establishing turf.

Irrigation of Growing Turf during its Vegetation:

We are coming back to the model of splitting up water doses into three applications a week with higher water amounts. If there is a period with high temperatures, we recommend smaller water doses applied in the early morning hours to be applied even on the days when the irrigation shouldn’t have happened according to initial instructions.

Fertilizing

Each lawn needs nutrients to grow well, to support its quality, regeneration and its growth in different periods of the year. Lots of Garden Boom fertilizers belonging to long-term fertilzers offer several options of fertilization according to the client or the turf’s needs.

Application once a year (Once a Year)

Do we want to fertilize our turf once a year in springtime? We then choose the fertilizer “Once a Year” giving nutrients in one application to the turf that will use it during the whole year. The advantage is that you don’t have to take care of additional fertilization after the spring fertilizer application and your turf will have nutrients enough for its growth.

Application twice a year (Once a Year + Autumn)

Another option combines one-year fertilizer with applying autumn fertilizer to help our turf overwinter in wintertime. In fact, we will support faster start-up of the turf in spring.

Application three times a year (Spring + Summer + Autumn)

The most optimum variant for the turf is applying different types of fertilizers with a nutrient content adjusted to the lawn needs in different periods of the year. The spring fertilizer will start up intensive growing of the turf. The spring fertilizer will provide a good resistance to high temperatures and stress impacts that the lawn is often exposed to in that time. The autumn fertilizer will provide good overwintering of the lawn in wintertime, but also its faster start-up in summertime.

You can get further information about fertilizers and nutrients in the section Lawn Fertilizers

CHOOSE THE PLAN OF YOUR ANNUAL FERTILIZATION
fertilizing_en.pdf, 3,6 MB

Mowing:

What makes the turf beautiful? In addition to the above-mentioned factors like selecting a good grass-seed mixture, correctly installing the turf, fertilizing and irrigating it, regular grass-mowing is very important with use of high-quality turf mowers equipped with sharp knives or cutting spindles. The lawn height will be selected according to the grass-seed mixture and our requirement. The average lawn-mowing height should be 3 to 3,5 cm. While mowing, we always shorten the lawn height by one third so as not to damage the lawn. If the lawn turns yellow after mowing, we have reduced too much the turf height in one mowing. If the ends of grass straws are fraying and are drying up, we have a blunt knife in the turf mower and it must be sharpened. The turf-cut quality always depends on sharpness of knives with both types of turf mowers (spindle or rotational ones). We recommend the mowed mass to be collected and removed after every lawn-mowing.

Verticutation:

Verticutation (vertical cut to lawn) s recommended to be done 2 times a year – in spring and autumn. Thanks to it, you can reduce the quantity of peat turf and moss in the over-ground lawn layer. In addition, the lawn cleaning will support the active air-flowing, supplies of nutrients to the turf root-zone and good water-transport. The verticutation depth should range from 3 mm to 4 mm. The lawn must be mowed before verticutation. We recommend the lawn to be fertilized after the intervention, using Pree-Seed fertilizer which is able to give the lawn nutrients for its regeneration and support growth of its root system.

Eliminating Dicotyledonous Weeds with Selective Herbicides

Selective herbicides are systematic agents against dicotyledonous weeds. When applying them, efficient substances of selective herbicides are translocated into roots, stalks and rootstock to destroy undesired plants in turf. Selective herbicides make leaves and stalks of dicotyledonous weeds deformed, with consequently withering the whole plants up.

They should be applied at temperatures of 15 - 25 °C. Lower temperatures slow down their effect and on the contrary, there is a risk of damaging lawn at higher temperatures.

Tips for selective herbicides: Dicotex, Bofix, Lontrel, Starane