George Howson

Most lawn advice you read online quietly assumes you know what grass you are growing. Feed at this rate, mow at this height, sow at this depth, treat for this disease. The trouble is that the same instruction will produce…

Thatch is one of those words you hear thrown around at garden centres without ever being told what it is, why it forms, or when you should care. Most lawns have a thatch layer of some thickness. A small amount…

You wake up to find three or four neat conical hills of soil on your front lawn, with more arriving every morning, and the standard advice is either to call pest control or set lethal traps. There is a third…

You go to bed with a flat lawn and wake up to a perfect circle of pale beige toadstools 40cm (16 inches) across, sitting in your front garden. Three days later they are gone. A week after that, a curving…

If your lawn looks tired despite regular feeding and watering, the soil pH is the first thing to check, and the result will change every other decision you make for the rest of the year. Grass cannot absorb most fertiliser…

If your lawn is barely growing in May despite warm days and regular care, the problem is almost always one of three things: nitrogen has run out, the soil has stopped breathing, or your grass has started defending itself against…

If your lawn feels spongy underfoot when you walk across it in May, the problem is almost always thatch. A thin layer of dead and living plant material at the base of the sward is normal and even beneficial, but…

If your lawn has suddenly grown a pale, wispy haze of stalks that defy your mower and bounce back up an hour after cutting, you are looking at seed heads. From mid to late May, almost every lawn made of…