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Lawn Care Tips

Lawn looking a little tired? Follow our expert advice on keeping lawn grass in peak condition.

D ecember 24, 2020

A lush, well-maintained lawn is the perfect green foil for colourful herbaceous borders, a great setting for summer picnics and even a foraging ground for birds and other wildlife. We show you how to keep your lawn looking its best all year round.


Regularly mowing your lawn will help promote lush, green growth. Nip out weeds like dandelions when you see them to stop them competing with the grass and scatter grass seed into bare patches to get them growing again. Use stored rainwater and grey water to water your lawn in dry summers to stop it going brown. Spike the turf with a fork to aerate trampled areas to help bring them back to life, and rake out dead growth in autumn to maintain a lush, green sward.

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Mow your lawn regularly

Cut your lawn at least once a week in summer and once every two weeks during spring, autumn and warm winters. Regular trimming encourages the roots to spread, which will help to fill gaps and block out weeds.

In summer, raise the cutting height of your mower to leave the lawn longer – around 5-10cm – as this will make it less prone to going brown in dry weather. Keep your mower well maintained and the blades sharp.

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Water Your Lawn

Always water young lawns but don’t over water as this can cause them to root shallowly and establish poorly. Sprinklers are perfect for keeping lawns hydrated. Don’t worry if an established lawn goes brown, it’s not dead. It will simply green up again when the rains come.

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Weed Your Lawn

Plantains and dandelions have wide, flat leaves that can smother large areas of lawn and inhibit growth, although they are easy to remove using a hand trowel or daisy grubber. Yellow medick, buttercups and clover can also spread quickly through a lawn, so raking before you mow can help to lift them up into the mower blades, weakening and killing them off over time.


Try to avoid using weedkiller. Chemical weedkillers can be expensive and ultimately don’t tackle poor grass health, which helps weeds to thrive.

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Relieve Compacted Grass

Compacted ground prevents grass growing well and can lead to bare patches in the summer and mud baths in the winter. Relieve the compaction and aerate the soil by pushing a garden fork about 10cm deep into the soil every 10cm and gently rocking back and forth on the fork handle. The prongs open up the soil, allowing the roots to breathe and encouraging the grass to regrow.


On heavy ground, such as clay soils, brush sharp sand or fine horticultural grit into the holes to improve drainage and prevent further compaction.

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Edge Your Lawn

Edging a lawn is the finishing touch to a neat, clipped lawn. Use a pair of long-handled shears to define the edge of your lawn, and stop the grass growing into borders. It instantly neatens your garden, creating a very satisfying finish. Where the lawn has grown into the border, use a spade or half-moon edger to reshape it and create a shallow ‘moat’ or install permanent edging that the grass can’t cross.

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Feed Your Lawn

To keep your lawn looking good you need to feed it regularly. If you have a large lawn, invest in a wheeled lawn feeder for a fast and accurate job. Apply fertilizer to grass when rain is forecast, so that it gets washed down to the roots and to stop it burning the leaf blades – an organic fertilizer will aid long term lawn health, over chemical alternatives. If it doesn’t rain, water the fertilizer in with a hose or watering can. Your grass should look greener within a week. Lawns typically need a feed in spring and midsummer.


To keep your lawn looking good it pays to feed it regularly.

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