When sections of your lawn lift away like a loose rug in July and August, the trouble sits two to three centimetres (about one inch) below the surface. Fat white C-shaped grubs or leathery grey-brown larvae have been chewing the…
When a lawn turns brown in a summer drought, the instinct is to drag out the sprinkler and pour water on it. In most established lawns that is the wrong move. A brown summer lawn is usually not dying, it…
The fastest way to deal with ant hills in a lawn is also the gentlest: wait for a dry day, knock the loose soil flat with a stiff brush or the back of a rake, and brush it into the…
If pale patches of grass have suddenly appeared on your lawn over the past week or two, knit through with fine pink or red threads at the tips, you are looking at red thread. It is one of the most…
Letting part of your lawn grow into a meadow is one of the cheapest changes you can make in a garden, and one of the most misunderstood. The idea sounds effortless: stop mowing and wait for flowers. What actually happens…
Watering your lawn after dinner feels sensible. The air is cool, the sun has gone, and less water seems to vanish into the sky. The problem is what happens to the grass for the next eight to twelve hours. An…
If a low, sprawling weed with three small leaves and tight clusters of bright yellow flowers has started creeping across the thin, dry parts of your lawn this summer, the plant is almost certainly black medic, and its arrival is…
Small, round, straw-coloured spots scattered across a summer lawn, each roughly the size of a coin and sometimes joining into bigger bleached patches, are most often the lawn disease called dollar spot. It is a fungus, it loves exactly the…
The fastest way to stop dog urine ruining your lawn is also the cheapest: keep a watering can by the back door and flush the spot within a few hours of your dog using it. That single habit dilutes the…
If you have ever raked away a ring of toadstools, scraped off the dead grass, and watched the same dark circle return a few weeks later, the problem is not your effort. It is where the fungus actually lives. A…
