How to sow lawn grass with your own hands: rules for planting a lawn in the country. How to sow a lawn correctly: general tips for beginning gardeners Planting lawn grass correctly step-by-step recipe

A properly planted and grown lawn will serve you well for a long time. But, wanting to get lawn grass on their plot, many, especially novice summer residents, are faced with many questions, for example: “How to choose and calculate the seeds?”, “When is it better to sow a lawn - in autumn or spring?”, “What should be the layout? ", "How to prepare the soil?", "How to care for the lawn?". We will try to answer these and some other questions in the article.

Did you know? The lawn is divided into decorative lawn and lawn with special purpose. Among them we can distinguish: sports, parterre, meadow, Moorish, mixed-grass.

How to choose the right lawn grass seeds

One of the most important factors for creating the right lawn with your own hands is the correct choice of seed. First of all, you should take into account the intended purpose of the lawn, because each type requires different grasses or grass mixtures. Although the main components of almost all such mixtures are unchanged (ryegrass, fescue, bluegrass and several others), they differ in the combination and ratio of varieties.

The choice will also determine when you can sow lawn grass, because different species have different frost resistance and growth rates (bluegrass, for example, grows slowly in the first years), what will be the height of the planned lawn at your dacha (fescue tolerates well short haircut), quality of turf (ryegrass has good turf), etc.

Different grass mixtures require different soils and may differ in seeding rates and other characteristics. All useful information you should look for it on the packaging and be sure to read it carefully before purchasing.

Ask the seller whether this or that mixture is suitable for your climate, when it is preferable to plant lawn grass - in spring or autumn. When choosing, take into account the characteristics of your site (what is the illumination, is there groundwater, etc.).

Important! Please note the availability of state or international certificates confirming the quality of the product.

Lawn layout

You can plan and plant a lawn in almost any corner of your property. Shade, sun, horizontal surface, slopes, sandy, and clay soils. The only thing that will differ in each case is the amount of material and physical effort required to plant and grow a truly beautiful and green lawn. It is better if it is a sunny place where melt and rain waters do not stagnate.

Before you start sowing, it is better to think through and even sketch a diagram of the future lawn. Decide whether you will keep trees, create flower beds, or grow individual flowers. It is necessary to pre-plan the places where landscape design elements will be placed, since then difficulties may arise with mowing the grown lawn.

If you use a lawn mower, for convenience, when you sow lawn grass, leave a distance of about 1 meter between it and curbs, walls or fences. Also, do not plant a lawn under a single tree or shrub. Better use it for tree trunk circles decorative crumbs or decorate them with ground cover plants.

How to correctly calculate the number of seeds for planting

To calculate the seeding of the grass mixture for each individual type of grass included in its composition, use the following formula, and the results are summarized. The seed sowing rate (kg/ha) is multiplied by the percentage of the amount of this species in the mixture and divided by the actual suitability of the seeds. Practice shows: in order to properly sow lawn grass with your own hands, you need to increase the seed consumption by two or even three times.

If you decide to sow only one type of grass, then simply follow the seeding rate of the selected crop. On average, you need to take 30 -50 g of seed per 1 m².

Important! If you can't calculate correctly required amount seeds, you can try to find out the germination density of the variety at home. Select ~100 seeds and plant them at home, and check the results after a week (10 days).

When to plant lawn grass - autumn or spring

Answering the question “When to plant lawn grass – in spring or autumn?”, it should be noted that there is no consensus on the most appropriate time. Sowing is possible at any time from spring until frost. Some gardeners claim that grass planted in May grows better, others that it will green up faster in the summer, and still others are sure that the most best time for sowing it is autumn.

Just don’t go to extremes, don’t rush (sowing a lawn in the spring does not happen until the earth warms up) and don’t wait for snow. At autumn planting the timing must be calculated correctly. Two options are considered optimal.

Either sow the lawn at the very beginning of autumn (then the grass will have time to sprout before frost, and you can cultivate it for wintering), or wait until the ground freezes, but before the snow (sowing in winter the material will pass stratification, will become resistant to diseases and will germinate in spring).

When people plant lawn grass in the spring, they must consider regular watering and weed removal, which is more difficult than planting in late summer. Many experienced specialists tend to consider this period optimal, since the soil is well warmed and moistened, there are significantly fewer weeds than in spring, and the lawn will have time to germinate well before frost begins.

As we see, special significance has neither the season nor the air temperature at which you will sow the grass; each option has its own disadvantages and advantages.

Did you know? The most famous and expensive lawn is the one located near the government building in Canberra (Australia). Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on its maintenance every year. Several dozen workers daily regulate its irrigation, taking into account temperature, air dryness and other criteria.

How to prepare the soil for planting lawn grass

Regardless of the time of sowing lawn grass, it is necessary to prepare the soil for it. This is one of the most important stages of laying a lawn. Remove all debris, stones, branches, and uproot stumps from the site. Dig the soil to a depth of about 25 cm. Add sand to heavy soil, and clay soil to sandy soil. If fertility is low, you should use compost. Also get rid of weeds.

A week before sowing, use complex mineral fertilizer and distribute it evenly over the area using a rake. Level the area, break up large lumps of earth. Use a shovel and rake. Level the soil again with a large board. This will help cut off the bumps and fill in the depressions.

Just before sowing, compact the soil using a hand roller or board (in this case, you need to move it around the site and move from one end to the other).

Important! Whenever you decide to arrange a lawn - in spring, summer or autumn - be sure to keep in mind that the area can only be compacted in dry weather, with dry soil. And only 2-3 days before sowing lawn grass, the selected area should be watered.

How to sow a lawn correctly: the process of planting lawn grass

The weather for sowing should be dry and windless. To distribute the seeds evenly, you should divide the area into square meters and sow as many seeds in each as is recommended for the grass or grass mixture you have chosen.

The seeds are embedded in the soil to a depth of 1-1.5 cm, first they are scattered lengthwise and then crosswise. If possible, use a manual seeder, it is more convenient, but you will be able to plant the lawn manually yourself. To prevent the seeds from being blown away by the wind, they can be sprinkled with a 1-centimeter layer of peat and rolled.

Lawn care at the dacha: how to grow a good and thick lawn

It is important to properly care for your lawn, otherwise it will begin to overgrow and fade. Watering and mowing play a significant role in this process.

Features of watering a country lawn

Immediately after sowing, if the soil is dry, you should water the area, but carefully, with low pressure, so as not to wash out the seeds. During germination and formation of turf, make sure that the lawn does not dry out. Further watering should be regular, but take into account weather conditions.

It is also necessary to water it after cutting (to help it recover, give it a neat appearance and rich color) and feed it (to transform useful material into a soluble form that is absorbed by the plant root system). Experts advise watering your lawn in the evening.

For those who want to have a beautiful and well-groomed area near country house, information on how to sow lawn grass with your own hands will be useful. A well-planted and beautiful lawn will be a wonderful place for the whole family to relax and an integral part of the landscape.

• 1 Seed selection
• 2 Landing
• 3 Lawn care
• 4 Useful tips
• 5 Photo gallery

Seed selection

How to grow a beautiful green lawn? First you need to select the appropriate seed material. Manufacturers offer a wide range of ready-made compositions for sowing lawns. For example, it could be a sports lawn or a lawn for family recreation.

When deciding how to plant a lawn with your own hands, it is important to pay attention to the composition of the lawn mixture. The seeds must be adapted to the local climate, otherwise you may be in for an unpleasant surprise in the form of a frozen lawn after winter. It is wiser to select frost-resistant varieties of grass, which are distinguished not only by their durability, but also by the thickness of their cover. These grasses include red fescue and meadow grass. The best option lawn mixture - combining these 2 types of grass in equal proportions.

An important criterion for obtaining a dense planting is the exact amount of seeds to be sown. Once the choice is made, you should follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for material consumption.

Another criterion is choosing the right time for planting. In any season, it is necessary to strictly follow the recommendations for the number of seeds for planting lawn grass. If sowing is carried out in summer or spring, it is worth adding another half of the norm to the specified parameter. This is due to the fact that spring floods and autumn rains carry away some of the seeds with the flow of water.

IN summer time for planting grass, they also take slightly more seeds than indicated by the manufacturer. The hot sun is destructive for young shoots, so it is advisable to increase the number of seedlings so that some of them are guaranteed to remain growing further.

The most dense lawn at your dacha will grow on flat ground. Lawns that slope or have uneven surfaces should be seeded more densely than required by the grower.

Landing

Once the planting time has been determined and the ideal seed variety has been selected, you can begin sowing lawn grass. The lawn planting technology is as follows:

1. Weed removal is carried out personal plot. Those who want to know how to plant lawn grass correctly should remember that the area must be thoroughly cleared of weeds. To achieve this goal, you can use all known methods: cultivation, mulching, watering the area with herbicides, hand weeding. Watering with herbicides can be considered the most effective. These solutions remove even the smallest weeds of any kind. Already two weeks after treatment, all weeds are completely destroyed.
2. It is imperative to cultivate the soil so that lawn planting is more successful. Before you sow your lawn, land plot it is necessary to dig up, remove stones and dried roots. Large clods of earth need to be broken up with a shovel. The prepared soil should be homogeneous, sufficiently loose and saturated with oxygen. Simultaneously with digging, the land plot is also leveled. The holes are filled with earth, and the soil is raked from the hillocks.
3. Without fertilizers, a thick lawn will not grow. If the soil type is alkaline, then it is fertilized with peat, and if it is acidic, with lime. Before planting lawn grass on the site, the soil must be fertilized with mineral or organic additives. The best option would be compost or vermicompost. If the soil is very poor, replacing the topsoil will help improve its composition. To do this, the area where it is planned to plant lawn grass is dug up, the top layer of soil up to 40 cm deep is removed. The depleted soil is removed, and fertile soil is laid in its place.
4. Leveling and compacting the site is an important stage of work. Before sowing lawn grass with your own hands, the soil must be leveled with a rake and compacted. High-quality compaction is carried out using a garden roller or a small barrel of water. The area prepared for planting must be compacted to such an extent that a person passing through it does not sink his feet into the ground.
5. How to properly sow lawn grass on a plot? First, you will have to make shallow grooves on the compacted surface of the earth. The depth of the sowing site should not exceed 1 cm, otherwise the small seeds will not sprout. Lawn planting lines are first made horizontally and then vertically across the area. You need to remember the seed consumption rates recommended by the manufacturer. After the seeds are planted, all grooves must be carefully covered with earth and rolled with a roller or barrel.

Lawn care

It is not enough to know how to sow a lawn with your own hands; you need to understand how to care for it after planting. To obtain healthy shoots, it is important to organize the first watering correctly. The best option is to use special sprayers with a fine irrigation function, then puddles will not form on the surface and seeds will not float to the surface. If the seeds are planted on rainy days, the first watering may not be necessary.

How to properly care for crops? If everything is done correctly, the first shoots can be seen within two weeks after planting. Grass emerges and develops unevenly, so don't panic if your lawn looks a little bald at first. Real picture The future lawn can only be seen four weeks after planting the lawn grass.

During the hot season, the lawn should be watered every day.

It is necessary to mow overgrown blades of grass if their length has reached 10 cm. Mowing is necessary both for aesthetics and to stimulate the growth of new grass.

1. The soil must remain prepared for at least 10-14 days before the seeds fall into the ground. During this time, the soil will be able to settle.
2. In spring, grass sprouts within 20 days, and in summer this period is reduced to 7 days.
3. To minimize the number of weeds that sprout along with the grass, it is better to sow in the fall.
4. Fertile soil should not be dug deep, this way you can avoid excessive shrinkage of the site.
5. To ensure that the area is sown evenly, it is distributed into squares in advance.
6. For the first 7 days after sowing, water the lawn with a watering can or self-contained sprayer. This way you can maintain air access to the sprouts that have not yet broken through the thickness of the earth.
7. They purchase seed material with a reserve, because if germination is poor, they will have to fill in the empty spaces later.
8. If the street is very hot weather(above +30°C), it is not recommended to fertilize the seedlings, otherwise their root system will burn.

Only if you follow all the rules will you be able to grow beautiful lawn no weeds or bald spots.

Photo gallery

Here you can see in the photo how you can decorate landscape design any area using a lawn.

A lawn always looks beautiful in a garden plot. Soft and fresh grass gives the area a well-groomed appearance. Sometimes without a lawn, the landscape design of an area looks unfinished and incomplete.

Let's talk about how to choose planting material and how to plant lawn grass on your own property.

As soon as the gardener decides on the type of garden lawn, he can already begin sowing the grass mixture. But it is worth considering that even best material for planting will not be able to show successful results without properly preparing the area for sowing the lawn. This point is key on the way to a beautiful and well-groomed area planted with green grass.

Site preparation

Now some rules and recommendations for preparing the area for sowing lawn, as well as in preparation for laying a roll-type lawn.

First of all, you need to remove absolutely all debris from the site, remove tree roots and stumps, as well as all root systems of shrubs. Remains of trees and bushes left in the soil can cause toadstools to appear in grassy areas.

It is necessary to remove the top turf layer of soil using a regular shovel or a special machine. The method with a shovel will require skill and physical strength from the gardener. This is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. Cutting the turf layer is a faster and less energy-consuming method. Yes, and in this way you can better prepare the soil.

If there are a lot of weeds in the area, then you definitely need to use herbicides, for example, Roundup. After using the drug, dead plants should be completely removed. It should be borne in mind that plants such as dandelion or clover have a developed root system and even with manual weeding, the remaining part of the rhizome will eventually grow and sprout sooner or later.

Leveling the area

This is an important step on the path to successful lawn planting. The area must be level as much as possible. Specialists in planting English lawns even use a building level when leveling the soil. This is justified because this is the only way to ultimately obtain an ideal lawn surface.

Terrain planning should only be done in dry and clear weather. In this case, the slope does not need to be removed; its presence will even help drain excess water on rainy days. But even such a slope must have a perfectly flat topography.

Potholes and unevenness in the ground can be leveled in two ways:

• remove a layer of soil from hummocks and move it into depressions and holes,
• fill the lowlands with fertile soil taken from other areas.

If there is no fertile soil, then a purchased soil mixture or peat soil can easily replace it. If the soil on the site is clayey and heavy, then in order to make it more permeable to water and air, you need to mix it with river sand.

Ideal soil parameters for growing lawn grass, per 100 grams of soil:

• acidity 5.5−6.5 pH;
• humus - 2.5 - 3.5%;
• nitrogen and nitrogen compounds - 10 milligrams;
• phosphorus - 15−25 milligrams;
• potassium: 20−30 milligrams;
• copper and zinc.

Drainage

If necessary, the soil must contain drainage layer. This is an optional step, but necessary in some cases.

Any instructions for planting a lawn state that you need to properly arrange drainage. If the sowing site is not flooded and is not subject to spring floods, then ordinary digging and fertilization will be sufficient. In other cases, it is necessary to create drainage system. This process must be combined with leveling the soil.

If the soil on the site is often flooded with water or it stands on it, then in this case you simply cannot do without drainage.

When leveling the terrain of the site, you need lay the removed layer of soil over the drainage, covered in two layers. The lower layer consists of coarse gravel, and the upper layer consists of sand or small crushed stone. Thus, a three-layer base will appear where the green carpet is planted. It looks something like this:

• the upper 15−20 centimeters of the layer is fertile soil,
• below is 15 centimeters of sand or crushed stone,
• then 15 centimeters of gravel.

In this case, each layer must be carefully compacted.

The type of drainage directly depends on the size of the plot, location groundwater and other factors that need to be discussed separately.

There are cases when the lawn is located near the foundation, then you need to lay French drainage, which can be done with your own hands. This is especially true in small areas.

Soil treatment and final cleaning

On small area it is possible to treat the soil using a shovel or pitchfork. You need to dig the ground 20 centimeters deep. If the humus layer is thin, then the depth may be less. In this case, it is necessary to feed the soil organic fertilizers and add river sand to it. Lawn grass does not like depleted soil and simply will not grow on it.

Lumps of earth must be broken up, otherwise the soil will settle unevenly and this will not allow the terrain of the site to be properly leveled. You can break the lumps with a rake, shovel or pitchfork. During this, you need to simultaneously clear the ground of stones, debris, weeds, as well as remnants of plant rhizomes.

If the planting area is large, then it is best to use a motor cultivator.

If sowing is planned in spring, then it is recommended to prepare the site in the fall. Then the earthen lumps can be left until the sowing period. This will improve drainage. Lumps need to be leveled and broken before planting.

Before you start tamping, and this is the next stage of site preparation, you need to drive stakes around the entire perimeter and pull a rope over them. Next, you need to perfectly adjust the level of the rope, the straight line of which should be 180°. For accuracy, you can use a building level.

Tamping

Soil compaction- This is a very important stage in site preparation. With its help, possible voids are removed from the soil thickness and thereby prevent unevenness in the topography of the green carpet.

You can compact the soil either with your feet or with a special roller. Any smooth, round object with a radius of at least twenty centimeters is perfect as a roller. For example it could be metal pipe large diameter.

Compact the soil only in dry and clear weather. After compacting the soil with your feet, you need to remove shoe prints with a rake.

Needed during the entire process control the level, and if it seems that there is an unevenness somewhere, then you need to correct it immediately. To do this, you can add a layer of soil or remove it.

Fallowing the area

Many people ignore and skip this stage, because it requires a lot of physical effort and time to complete. But it has a number of advantages.

Keeping it fallow rids the soil of weed roots and seeds. This stage is required for a seeded lawn; when laying a rolled lawn, parrying can be omitted.

The area needs to be steamed for two months.. The method involves constant removal of weeds and treatment with herbicides.

Currently, instead of fallowing, sowing green manure is used. They are sown on the site a month and a half before planting the lawn, and before planting the area with the plants is plowed. It has been proven to have a beneficial effect on the soil and enrich it.

Pre-sowing preparation

A week before the intended sowing, you need scatter around the area mineral fertilizers and seal them with a rake to a depth of five centimeters.

When loosening the soil, the lumps of earth should be no larger than the size of a grain of wheat.

Before sowing grass, you need to choose the most favorable day in terms of weather. It should be clear and dry. The top layer of soil should ideally be dry and the bottom layer moist.

Spring sowing is best done in April - June. When sowing in summer, abundant watering will be required, since lawn grass is very demanding of moisture and can dry out.

How to sow lawn grass in the spring on your site?

So, now let's talk about direct sowing. The grass mixture has already been purchased and now all that remains is to proceed to the most important thing.

Let's get started:

First watering

Lawn grass usually sprouts 7−20 days after sowing. If the weather is not rainy, the lawn needs to be watered regularly. But this must be done with extreme caution, using a watering can with a sprayer or a special lawn installation that sprays water jets.

As soon as the green carpet grows to 10 centimeters, it’s time to trim.

Conclusion

We figured out how to properly plant lawn grass in the spring on your territory. It is worth saying that if you follow all the recommendations for preparing the site for sowing lawn grass, as well as the rules for planting and care, then it is quite possible to become the owner of an ideal lawn covering on the site, which will be the highlight and decoration of the area.

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Any person enjoys not only looking at the soft green lawn, but also sitting on it. Children especially love to run on green grass. A lawn that is planted and grown correctly can last a very long time. But sometimes a situation happens that, despite seemingly following all the rules and instructions, it is not possible to achieve the desired attractiveness of the lawn. Why does this happen and how to properly plant a lawn with your own hands so that it pleases the eye? Let's try to figure this out.

Selecting Lawn Grass Seeds

To create the right lawn with your own hands, you should correctly choose seed. It is imperative to consider the purpose for which the lawn will be used, because there are different grass mixtures or herbs. To grow a beautiful lawn, use the following types of grass:

• meadow bluegrass;
• common bluegrass;
• common ryegrass;
• fescue;
• bentgrass;
• creeping clover;
• festulolium;

When choosing seeds, the sowing time should be taken into account. Different types herbs have different frost resistance and growth rates. For example, bluegrass grows quite slowly in the first years. Also, when choosing seeds, you need to take into account the height of the planned lawn at the dacha, the quality of the turf, etc. For different grass mixtures it is required different soil , they can differ in seeding rate and many other characteristics.

What is the best time to plant grass?

When should you plant grass for your lawn – in spring or autumn? You can sow grass on the site at any time, from spring to autumn frosts. The main thing is not to hold out until the snow falls. There is no consensus on when to plant a lawn. Some gardeners are sure that grass grows best if it is planted in May, others believe that summer sowing gives quick results, and others believe that lawn grass mixture should be sown in the autumn months in order to have a thick green cover by the next season.

Many gardeners prefer sowing in autumn, because they believe that grass emerges from under the snow in the spring very quickly. But when to sow lawn grass in the fall? This should be done either at the beginning of September, so that the plants have time to sprout before frost and can be processed before wintering, or into already frozen ground before the snow cover sets in - in this case, the seeds will undergo stratification over the winter, will be resistant to diseases and will hatch in the spring.

Sowing in spring is also popular, but, according to experienced experts, optimal time for sowing a lawn - late summer. At this time, the soil is already well warmed up and moistened, there are much fewer weeds than in spring, and the seeds have time to germinate and take root before frost sets in. Although sowing in spring provides a beautiful lawn, it is much more difficult to maintain because it requires regular watering and constant removal of weeds.

How to calculate the number of seeds?

To calculate the seeding of a grass mixture for a certain type of grass that is included in its composition, use a special formula, and the results are summarized. The seed sowing rate (kg/ha) must be multiplied by the percentage of the amount of this type in the mixture and divided by the actual suitability of the seeds. As practice shows, in order to sow quality lawn grass, you need to increase the seed consumption by 2–3 times.

If you need to sow only one type of grass, then you need to follow the seeding rate of the selected crop. On average, the consumption of lawn grass seeds per 1 m2 is 30 - 50 grams.

Selecting a location

Sowing lawn grass begins with choosing a location. Grass mixtures can be planted almost anywhere on your property. Suitable:

• horizontal surface;
• Sun;
• shadow;
• slopes;
• clay and sandy soils.

In each specific case, only the amount of physical and material effort required to plant and grow a beautiful and green lawn will differ. Grass mixtures are best planted on sunny place where rain and melt water will not stagnate.

Before you start sowing seeds, it is advisable to think over a diagram of the future lawn and even sketch it. It will be necessary to decide whether to leave trees on the site, grow individual flowers, or arrange flower beds. You need to decide in advance on the placement of landscape design elements, because it may be difficult to cut the grown lawn grass.

If you will be using a lawn mower, then when sowing grass, you can, for convenience, leave a distance of one meter between it and fences, walls or borders. In addition, you should not plant grass under a lone shrub or tree.

Site preparation

Before sowing grass, the area must be cleared of weeds and leveled. Such thorough preparation will help save you from weeding later and will make it easier to mow your grown lawn. It takes 1 to 4 weeks to prepare the site.

The area should be treated with a general herbicide. Those areas of the dacha that are heavily overgrown with weeds must be treated in several stages. When the grass withers and withers, the area must be cleared of debris, shrub roots, and dried grass, after which it is leveled. If the soil is poor and requires the addition of fertile soil, then you can finally get rid of weeds by covering the lawn area with geotextiles. Thanks to this non-woven fabric, weed seeds will not be able to germinate and nothing will disturb the lawn grass.

Soil preparation

Before sowing a lawn, you need to create favorable conditions for the friendly and rapid emergence of grass seedlings and its further growth. The need to apply fertilizer depends on the type of soil. If it is acidic, then slaked lime or chalk must be added to it, and clayey areas with heavy and dense soil, loosen it using humus or vermicompost.

At the same time, mineral fertilizers should be applied. If sowing is in spring, then the emphasis is on nitrogen fertilizer, which causes rapid growth of grass, and in the fall, to facilitate wintering of the seeds, more potassium and phosphorus are added.

The soil and additives should be evenly distributed throughout the entire area, after which the soil is loosened and slightly moistened. The leveled area is rolled using a special roller. If bumps and holes are suddenly discovered, they are added or cut off, and then rolled again. Once the ground is leveled, it should rest for several days.

How to sow lawn grass with your own hands?

Before planting a lawn, it should be mentally divided into several identical sections. The seeds should be divided into the same number of parts, this is necessary so that the seeds germinate evenly.

How to sow lawn grass correctly with your own hands? Seeds should be planted in the soil to a depth of 1 - 1.5 cm. First they need to be scattered lengthwise and then across. This helps the seeds lie evenly. If possible, you can use a manual seeder. This is much more convenient, but you can also plant a lawn with high quality manually. To prevent the wind from carrying the seeds away, they should be sprinkled with a centimeter layer of peat and rolled. After this, the seeded lawn is watered with a watering can or hose with a fine spray. Watering should be done moderately, otherwise the soil may become waterlogged.

Lawn care

The lawn must be properly cared for, otherwise it will wither and become overgrown. Mowing and watering play a big role in this process.

Features of watering

Immediately after sowing the grass, if the soil is dry, you need to carefully water the area weak pressure, otherwise the seeds may be washed out. Watering in the future should be regular, but weather conditions must be taken into account.

It is necessary to water the lawn after mowing so that it recovers and acquires a neat appearance and rich color. Experts recommend watering your lawn in the evenings.

A haircut

Lawn mowing is required to maintain it in proper condition. Moreover, this good way control weeds and stimulate vegetative development, which leads to the formation of additional shoots and the development of the root system, contributing to the creation of dense turf.

Before mowing, the lawn should be checked for foreign objects. For the first time, the lawn begins to be mowed 1 - 1.5 months after the sprouts appear. In height the first haircut should be at least 6 - 8 cm, and all subsequent ones should be 3–5 cm. In spring and autumn, one centimeter is added to this height.

Thus In order to properly decorate their summer cottage, many gardeners plant grass for the lawn. This makes the landscape design more attractive and delights the owners with its beauty. Lawn care depends on the type of grass chosen. Sowing is best done in the fall, this will allow you to get strong, weed-free plants.

Almost every summer cottage you can see the lawn. It serves both as a family vacation spot and as part of the overall landscape composition. When you are just planning a lawn, you dream of thick, even grass that covers the ground in an even layer and creates the feeling of a green carpet. In reality it turns out differently. Inexperienced gardeners may have a lawn with bald spots, weeds, no grass cover at all at the edges, etc. Most often, unsuccessful sowing is to blame for this. Grass could be sown in wrong time, uneven layer, without preliminary preparation of the soil, etc. Let’s figure out what mistakes summer residents most often make at the sowing stage and how to plant lawn grass correctly so that it takes root and forms a good turf.

The most frequently asked question among summer residents is: how thick to sow grass for the lawn and what is the best way to do it. Let's start with the density of the crops.

The first criterion for a healthy lawn is a properly selected mixture of grasses. Today, both domestic and imported lawn mixtures are sold, and often the high price does not guarantee excellent seedlings. The grass should suit the climate of your area. We wrote about this in more detail in the article “”, so we will omit this question here.

Each package indicates the recommended seed consumption per square meter, but in this case you need to take into account the time of year during which you create the lawn. For example, when sowing in autumn, the manufacturer’s recommendations are followed. But in spring and summer, at least half is added to the norm, increasing seed consumption. During spring floods and snow melting, some of the seeds will go deep into the ground or be washed away with water and will not germinate. In summer, they give more seeds in anticipation of the heat, which has a detrimental effect on young shoots and can mow down up to half of the seedlings if some measures are not taken (more on this a little later).

The location of the lawn also influences the degree of sowing density. On hills, specially made uneven areas or lawns that go downhill, it is worth adding a little more seeds than the packaging recommends. At higher points, seeds will be washed out along with water to lower places when heavy rain, if it arrives at sowing time.

Sowing methods and their features

Now let's figure out how to properly sow lawn grass. If with the norm per sq.m. Once you have decided, the second step is to scatter the grass evenly so that you don’t get too dense shoots in one place and “bald patches” in another.

When seeding a lawn, areas near the edge of the lawn, flower beds or paths are sifted thicker than all other areas. If this is done with a seeder, then go through it 2 times

The easiest way to do this is with a seeder, which itself will spread the mixture over the grass with perfect uniformity. But if neither you nor your friends have such a device, then you shouldn’t buy it just for the lawn. You can spread it evenly with your hands. To do this, the seeds are diluted with fine sand 1:1, i.e. if the grass consumption per meter is 50 g, then you need to add 50 g to it. sand

Some gardeners create homemade seeders from metal or plastic cans, piercing the bottom with a hot nail and creating many holes

If the lawn is large in area, then prepare a sand-seed mixture for the entire lawn at once. They sow bread like in the old days: first along the prepared field, then across it. After this, they carefully loosen the soil with a rake to hide the grass under a layer of soil, and roll it with a heavy roller. If there is no skating rink, put on your skis and walk in them across the entire lawn, trampling meter by meter. You will, of course, surprise passers-by with your unusual appearance in shorts and skis, but the lawn will be compacted as it should.

If you are not sowing a lawn on a large area, but are creating a narrow strip, then you can take a wide board for tamping, lay it flat on the soil and trample on it. Then transfer to the next part of the lawn. Etc.

If you only have a heavy metal rake in your arsenal, it is better to stir the soil first and then sow lawn grass seeds into it

The sown seeds are raked with a fan rake, which is used to collect the mown grass. If you don’t have these, then wide metal or plastic models can rake the seeds too deeply or pull them into one heap. And your shoots will be uneven. In the absence of a fan rake, they sow a little differently: first they loosen the soil with a rake, then scatter the grass and immediately roll it down. The roller itself will press the seeds to the required depth and maintain uniformity of sowing.

How to choose the optimal sowing time?

Any summer resident knows that friendly and quick shoots occur only when the soil is moist and there is no heat. Therefore, before planting grass in your dacha in prepared soil, check the weather forecast for the week. If weather forecasters predict +25 and above, leave the seeds alone. They will still germinate poorly. Wait until the weather turns rainy. Water lowers the temperature of the earth and accelerates the swelling of seeds. In spring and autumn you won’t have to wait long for such weather, but in the summer the wait can last for a month or a month and a half.

1. Wait until evening time (after 19.00).
2. Sprinkle all the soil using sprinkling method to wet it to a depth of at least 40 cm.
3. Wait 1.5-2 hours until the water is absorbed.
4. Scatter the seeds.
5. Loosen the soil with a fan rake.
6. Roll or compact with a board.
7. Mulch with peat and humus (half a centimeter layer).
8. Leave overnight. Re-water in the morning.

If the area of ​​the future lawn is small, you can spread non-woven material instead of mulch and press it down from the edges with boards, bricks or stones. There will be no heat under the white spunbond, since part sun rays The light color of the fabric will come back. Covering will save the seeds from drying out and maintain air conditions. Every day is carried out directly over the covering material, which will freely allow moisture to pass inside. Remove the cover when the grass grows 2-3 cm, or when the hot weather changes to normal.

The soil is rolled with a roller before mulching, and not after, so that the peat layer does not put pressure on the grass, but only covers it from the hot sun

If you sow grass for the winter, on slightly frozen soil, then by spring the seeds will undergo stratification and sprout very early

Some wisdom of the sowing process can be gleaned from the video:

To achieve good germination, consider the following nuances:

1. Before sowing, the site must stand for at least 2 weeks to allow the soil to settle.
2. In early spring, grass sprouts in about 20 days, in summer – 7-8 days, in autumn – about 10 days.
3. The closer to autumn the lawn is made, the less it will sprout along with the grass.
4. If the soil on the site is good, do not dig the site deeply. It is enough to turn the top layer over and clear it of weeds. This will make it easier for you to achieve flat surface, because the soil will not shrink.
5. If you divide the area under the lawn into squares and sow each part separately with a norm of seeds, it will be easier to achieve the same density.
6. The first week, watering is done manually, using a garden watering can with a sprayer. The hose hits the ground too hard, causing a crust to form in dry weather. And if you set it to automatic sprinkling, it is more difficult to control whether the soil is evenly wetted.
7. Always buy seeds with a good supply, because if germination is poor, you will have to replant empty spaces, and if there is no grass left, it is not always possible to buy exactly the same mixture. As a result, your lawn will have different shades of color.
8. Don't overdo it with fertilizers. If it’s above 30° outside, then you shouldn’t fertilize, otherwise the roots will burn.

The British believe that even with the most careful sowing and care, the grass will create a perfect, uniform surface only after 5 years. So don’t be upset if your lawn doesn’t live up to expectations in the first year. Any plant needs enough time to come into force. And a person can only speed up this process good care, timely watering and fertilizing.