Aeration is one of the best things you can do for a tired, compacted lawn, but doing it in the middle of summer is a mistake that can leave the grass worse than before. The reason is timing, not technique.…
A sprinkler timer turns watering from a daily chore you forget into something the lawn does for itself before you are even awake. The whole point is to deliver the right amount of water at the right time of day…
The short answer is that granular feed is for the long, steady base of your lawn programme, and liquid feed is for fast results and fine-tuning. Granular fertiliser releases nutrients slowly over weeks or months, so it builds and holds…
If pale, glossy blades keep shooting up above the rest of your lawn within days of every mow, you are almost certainly looking at nutsedge. It is not a true grass, and that is exactly why it beats your turf…
The first thing to do when your mower starts smoking is to switch it off and look at the colour of the cloud, because the colour is the diagnosis. Blue and white smoke almost always mean oil is being burned…
The air filter is the cheapest part on a petrol mower and the one most likely to kill the engine if you ignore it. A clean filter costs a few pounds and takes minutes to change, yet a neglected one…
If your lawn turns a rich green and grows fastest in the heat of summer, then fades to straw and stops growing as the weather cools, you are almost certainly looking after a warm-season grass such as bermuda or zoysia.…
The single rule that prevents most slope mowing accidents is also the one people most often get backwards: if you use a walk-behind mower, cut across the slope, side to side, never straight up and down. If you use a…
Two low-growing weeds tend to spread through lawns in early summer just as the grass slows after its spring rush: speedwell and self-heal. Both share a frustrating trick, they grow and even flower below the height most people mow at,…
If circular patches of tan, straw-coloured grass have appeared on your lawn during a warm, muggy spell, the cause is almost certainly brown patch, a fungal disease driven by the soil organism Rhizoctonia solani. The practical takeaway is short: stop…
