With the great British summer time just around the corner, your going to want your garden to impress and after the winter season, there may be a lot of jobs to do.
Perhaps one of the most infuriating parts of gardening is removing weeds from your pathways, lawn and borders.
Technically speaking a weed is just a plant that’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. Usually, it is one of two things, either a seed from another plant or something more invasive that you really want out of your garden.
Unfortunately, you will never fully be able to stop weeds from cropping up from time to time. But there are ways in which you can remove weeds from growing.
How to Remove Weeds From Borders, Pathways & The Lawn
Weeds in the Borders – Yearley weed seeds can survive in your garden for years in your soil bed, sitting there and waiting for the perfect conditions for them to grow. They germinate at much lower temperatures than most garden plants and can easily grow and seed very quickly. It’s very important that you recognise them at a seedling stage. This will allow you to remove the weed without removing any flower or vegetable seeds
Weeds on the Path – If you have an abundance of weeds building up on your pathing slabs we would recommend using an old kitchen knife or you can purchase a special paving brush from most DIY stores. Carefully scrape the weeds out of the gaps between paving slabs, making sure to not pull the knife towards you.
Weeds in the Lawn – We would advise you to keep your lawn as healthy as possible to avoid weed growth. However, if you do have a few weeds growing throughout your lawn then you can easily purchase some herbicide gel.
The spring season is just around the corner, and I for one can’t wait to get out into my garden and give it some much need TLC, especially after the harsh winter weather we’ve experienced.
As always safety in the garden should always be of utmost importance, particularly if you have little ones running around.
The lawnmower tops the list of most dangerous items in your garden, with roughly 6,500 reported incidents each year. Followed closely by the flowerpot in second place. Many of the points in our article may seem like common sense, however, you can never be too careful.
Why Accidents In The Garden Happen?
Firstly before we dive into how you can protect yourself and your family in the garden, we need to understand why accidents happen. This usually applies to any situation, not just getting knee deep in the soil. accidents usually happen because of three main reasons…
People take shortcuts
Lack of planning and preparation
Being in the wrong place at the wrong time
Simply put these are the most common reasons as to why people can become injured whilst gardening. However with Lawn Seeds top 5 tips your garden will be a safe zone in no time.
Top Tips For Keeping Safe In The Garden
Tripping hazards are everywhere in the garden, from the hosepipe that has been wrapped up properly to that loose pathing slab. We would always advise you to correctly wrap your hose pipe up once you are finished with it. If your not sure how to do this correctly take a look at The Gardeners Journal they have an excellent blog post on how to do this manually.
Do not leave any sharp objects lying around your garden. These can be fatal if someone is to trip and fall. We would recommend investing in a decent sized shed or garden storage unit to keep all of your tools in. If you want to be extra safe invest in a padlock.
Know what types of plants you’re planting in your garden if you have animals or small children we would advise against purchasing any poisonous plants.
Never leave your BBQ unattended. Always make sure there is an adult monitoring the BBQ and keep children well clear. Also, make sure that you have extinguished all the flames before you go to bed.
Our fifth tip to keep you are safe in the garden would be to invest in an RCD (residual current device) these can easily prevent you from having a nasty electrical shock should you cut through your lawn mower cable. A lot of modern lawnmowers have these built-in however, if you are unsure check the owners manual.
Safety in the garden should always be your main priority. We encourage you to share more safety tips in the comment section below.
A great British lawn is the centrepiece of many a garden. It might be considered the canvas on which most gardens are built. After a long Winter left to its own devices, you may need to spend some time caring for your lawn. With our tips, you can have your lawn looking its best in no time.
Winter brings many challenges to the gardener, and a lawn is no exception. Debris is the first hidden peril, so you might also consider removing any debris from the lawn.
Many a good mower has broken down early in the Spring after getting caught up in garden debris hidden beneath the long grass. Once you’re sure the lawn is clear, you might want to start with a two-cut strategy, particularly if the soil beneath is a little damp.
Cutting down to a length of around 3 inches first, letting the ground beneath get some air, and then 3 to 4 days later returning to cut to your normal length. Remembering to leave the grass a little longer in shady areas.
Quick tip; Watch out for over-mowing. Cutting the grass too often weakens the grass and damages the soil beneath. Once a week is as frequent as most grass should be cut, once every two weeks is quite adequate for most to keep a tidy lawn area.
Is this lawn I see beneath me?
Once cut, you might want to consider what the composition of your lawn is.
Is it as much grass as you would like it to be?
A few months without maintenance and in Winter conditions can often result in the growth of unwanted weeds and the spread of moss across your garden.
While many normal lawn seed products contain additives that will help to control weeds and moss, it’s often the case that after Winter a lawn might benefit from a special treatment with a liquid lawn weed killer.
Modern treatments of this type are safe to use and work quickly and effectively. Though to get the best results you might want to keep your children and pets off the lawn for a few days. In most cases these are “once a year” use products and are applied via a hose mixer, or, for smaller lawns, mixed into water in a watering can. Again, as with many of these treatments, this is best applied to dry lawns. Remember that wet weather can wash away any treatments or make their effectiveness patchy.
Fertilising and Feeding a lawn.
Depending on the soil type, you’ll all may well require feeding.
A good fertiliser-based granular feed will bring the best colour and strength to your grass. Releasing nutrients over a long period of time ensuring even growth, and less work for you in terms of lawn care.
As with weed and moss control, you may want to start Spring off with a special lawn feeding effort, using a “four in one”product.
You may find that a lawn spreader, commonly available from your local DIY store, helps to spread the seed evenly. Particularly useful with large lawns.
Topping off this feed every six weeks by adding mixture to your watering routine will keep the grass healthy and the soil beneath properly nourished to support a healthy garden.
Worn Out and Walked On
It is a rare lawn that doesn’t suffer from the occasional worn and bare patch.
This brings two problems for the gardener.
Often the ground underneath the bare patches has been trodden and compacted, making reseeding a little more complicated.
The second issue is that worn areas can ruin the look of even the most carefully planned garden.
You may need to use your garden fork to turn the soil over in the patched area, to begin with, normally turning the fork down to 3 to 4 inches at a maximum.
Quick tip; Half the depth of your forks prongs is probably more than adequate. The aim is to loosen a few inches of topsoil only.
Turning the soil over and loosening it, then feeding and rating the area making it suitable for reseeding.
While there are seed products on the market specifically aimed for patch repair, using the same lawn seed you would use in the rest of your garden is normally the best practice.
However, if you know that this area will continue to be heavily used, you might want to consider a specialist hard-wearing grass.
Once sown, follow the other points above to ensure that it remains healthy and green throughout the growing season.
Perhaps integrate patch repair as a process you do alongside your regular mowing routine. It’s very likely that an area once worn through the passage of people will wear again and require some level of maintenance throughout the season.
Get 5% off your first order, use promotional code FIRSTORDER5% at checkout
