How to plant a sports lawn. How and when to sow lawn grass

Many people dream of a beautiful lawn in the country, and not everyone can hire a designer who will do everything for you. But figure out how to sow lawn grass with their own hands, within the power of everyone. Usually, in the country, the lawn is sown from purchased seeds. Some people prefer to buy rolled lawn... This is already finished coating, on which the grass grows, you don't have to think about how to plant it. In any case, you should first choose the type of lawn coverage.

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Types of lawns

All lawns can be divided into 4 groups depending on their functionality:

1 Parterre. It requires careful maintenance, which will take a lot of time. But the soft rich green of the lawn is great for decorating a summer cottage.
2 Sports. Good for shaping playgrounds, places to rest, etc. The grass that covers the sports lawn recovers perfectly and is resistant to mechanical damage.
3 Universal. Such a lawn is able to solve any landscape problems. It does not require long-term care and easily recovers. Among the versatile lawns, the shady lawn can be distinguished. Its grasses are capable of growing in the shade of trees and tall shrubs. Sow the grass in the spring.
4 Moorish lawn. Characteristically different from the usual green mowed lawns and more like a flower bed.

Each group includes a set of several herbs. At unfavorable conditions one of the varieties of herbs may die, then this gap is filled by others, more persistent. Thanks to the mixture of herbs, the lawn always has a uniform green coverage. Usually herbal mixture consists of: fescue, bluegrass, ryegrass, broom. Each of these grasses has properties capable of giving the lawn a graceful appearance and longevity.
Ryegrass grows rapidly and retains a distinct green view throughout the season.
Bluegrass tolerates heat and cold. It sprouts in a dense carpet that cannot be trampled down. Such a lawn in the country will become worthy decoration and a place of rest.
Fescue has good frost resistance and excellent moisture absorption. Sow it in early spring.

Sowing site planning

Where and how to grow? Before sowing the grass, it is necessary to plan the place for placing the lawn cover. Landscape designers recommend placing the lawn on a flat area, in partial shade or in the sun. In a place that is too dark, there is a chance that the herbs will not take root. But, as practice shows, the lawn can be placed on any surface, regardless of whether it is a horizontal plane or an inclined one. Of course, more efforts will have to be made, since a layer of fertile soil must be placed on the inclined plane, which will not collapse and slide. To avoid landslides, it is sufficient to attach a strong net before laying the soil on the slope. In this case, it is necessary to purchase seeds intended for planting on slopes. Lawn grass grows both on sandy and clay soils.

Marking the land for the lawn

Before preparing the land, it is advisable to draw a plan for the location of the lawn coverage on the territory.

It is necessary to place the lawn taking into account trees, paths, etc. This is necessary so that in the future there are no problems with cutting and cleaning the area. Do not plant grass around trees as it will it will have to be constantly sown. It is better to leave a place that can be decorated with small stones or sand. Further, soil preparation, leveling and marking are those stages after which it is extremely difficult to change anything on the site.

Preparing the land for planting

Sowing lawn grass with your own hands is a matter that requires a lot of preparation. Prepare the soil for the lawn as follows:

1 Remove unnecessary trees and bushes.
2 Clear the area of all debris: stones, small twigs, without burying them in the ground. Poor cleaning quality will come to mind when planting and tamping.
3 Completely remove weeds from the turf planting area.

This can be done in several ways:

regularly pull up weeds with your hands for some time;
get rid of using planting crops - wheat or rye;
remove weeds using herbicides.

Next, the prepared earth needs to be dug up. If the soil is not very fertile, it is necessary to fill up a small layer of soil brought from another site, and also add mineral fertilizers, and you can proceed to leveling.

Features of sowing seeds

How to plant a lawn with your own hands? Using an iron rake, you need to carefully level the ground, break up clods and remove holes and cracks. It will be more difficult to care for the lawn on unevenly leveled ground. If you leave the holes, then the planted grass will grow in waves, and if there are cracks in the ground, grow together into bumps average size.
The leveled soil must be tamped with a roller. When working on a large area, it is a good idea to rent a roller for manual asphalt rolling from a road repair company. If the area is small, you can do it yourself, for example, fill iron barrel water and use it for ramming, or take a wide board and trample the soil through it with your feet.

Next, you need to loosen the soil a little with a rake and close it plastic wrap, is the most best advice how to sow lawn grass correctly. In a month, the greenhouse effect created under the film will destroy the rest of the weeds. The soil is ready, now you can choose the time to sow the seeds on the lawn.

Season selection

The time when the lawn grass is planted has no restrictions. You can start planting seeds with the arrival of spring, when the soil has warmed up a little, and until late autumn, until the first frosts come. By planting lawn grass in spring, you can get the first shoots very quickly. Of course, one should not forget about the peculiarities of the climate.

But the best time for planting is summer. During this period, planting a lawn with your own hands is much easier, since almost all favorable factors coincide: the soil is warmed up and there is enough moisture in it, and the weeds do not grow as fast as in the spring.

The grass will rise even before frost and have time to get stronger in order to winter painlessly. And in the spring you don't have to think about how to sow lawn grass. All that remains is to take care of the grooming and haircut.

If we consider the autumn planting, you need to consider some points. Seeds planted in the first month of autumn will sprout up to cold weather. And the seeds planted in late autumn will get stronger faster and will be more resistant to diseases typical for this type of grass. If you plant lawn grass in the fall, you will need to feed it with fertilizers that contain fluoride and potassium, which will strengthen future roots.

Long-term experiments have shown that lawn seeds planted in May germinate and grow faster. Summer planting allows you to see small grass in the current season. Spring and summer seedlings require more painstaking care: you will have to destroy weeds and water them much more often. For the full growth of seeds planted in spring and summer, you need to use fertilizers with a low nitrogen content.

The basic rule when planting lawn grass is dry weather without wind and rain. The seeds are very light, and even a slight wind is able to disperse them throughout the territory of the dacha. Next, you can focus on how to properly plant your lawn in the spring.

Landing activities

How to properly plant lawn grass? Many experienced gardeners advise mixing the seeds with sand or using a special planter when sowing lawn grass. Both methods have a right to exist, therefore, how to plant lawn grass, you need to decide on your own. If you do not have a seeder, you can sow the seeds by hand by scattering the seeds along the plot and then across. After planting the seeds, you need to walk around the entire territory with a roller. This is necessary to evenly press the seeds into the ground. Then the sowing is watered drip irrigation throughout the week: this method of watering will allow the sprouts to receive the necessary moisture, while the soil will not erode.

Cutting, grooming and fertilizing

To make your lawn look good, you need:

1 Regular mowing to keep your lawn smooth and beautiful.
2 Timely watering during growth, after weed control and mowing.
3 Weeding. No matter how diligently weeds are destroyed, after a while they reappear. Weeding by hand is the most tedious but also the most effective way to control weeds.
4 Compulsory top dressing necessary for the normal growth and development of the lawn grass.
5 Cleaning. It is needed to give the lawn an aesthetic appearance. In autumn, it is advisable to remove dry leaves and remnants of cut grass, and spring cleaning is compatible with combing the soil.

No need to deposit in the first year a large number of fertilizers, since young grass will have enough of those nutrients that are in the soil. Watering must be carried out with the utmost care, without eroding the seedlings. If properly cared for, the effort spent will give rise to a beautiful lawn that will delight you throughout the season. So while some are just thinking about how to properly plant lawn grass, while others are already admiring their work.

For those who wish to have a beautiful and well-groomed territory near country house, information on how to sow lawn grass with your own hands will be useful. A well-planted and beautiful lawn will be a great place for the whole family to relax and an integral part of the landscape.

1 Seed selection
2 Landing
3 Lawn care
4 Helpful Tips
5 Photo gallery

Seed selection

How to grow a beautiful green lawn? First you need to choose the right seed. Manufacturers offer a wide range of ready-made solutions for sowing lawns. For example, it can be a sports or family lawn.

When deciding how to plant a lawn with your own hands, it is important to pay attention to the composition of the lawn mixture. The seeds must be adapted to the local climate, in otherwise you can expect an unpleasant surprise in the form of a lawn frozen after winter. It is wiser to choose frost-resistant grasses that differ not only in durability, but also in the density of the cover. These herbs include red fescue and meadow bluegrass. The best option lawn mixture - a combination in equal proportion of 2 of these types of grasses.

An important criterion for obtaining a dense planting is the exact measure of the seed to be sown. After the choice is made, you should adhere to the manufacturer's recommendations for material consumption.

Another criterion is choosing the right time for planting. In any season, it is necessary to strictly follow the recommendations for the number of seeds for planting lawn grass. If sowing is carried out in summer or spring, it is worth adding another half of the norm to the specified parameter. This is due to the fact that spring floods and autumn rains carry away part of the seeds with the water flow.

V summer time for planting herbs, they also take a little more seeds than indicated by the manufacturer. The hot sun is detrimental to young shoots, so it is advisable to increase the number of shoots so that some of them are guaranteed to remain growing further.

The densest lawn in the country will grow on level ground. Lawns that slope or have irregularities should be sown more densely than the grower requires.

Landing

Once the planting time has been determined and the ideal seed variety has been selected, you can start sowing your lawn grass. Lawn planting technology is as follows:

Weed removal is carried out on personal plot... Those who want to know how to properly plant lawn grass should remember that the area must be carefully cleared of weeds. To achieve this goal, you can use all known methods: cultivation, mulching, watering the site with herbicides, manual weeding. Watering with herbicides can be considered the most effective. These solutions remove the smallest weeds of any kind. Within two weeks after treatment, all weeds are completely destroyed.
It is imperative to cultivate the soil so that the planting of the lawn is more successful. Before sowing the lawn, the land plot must be dug up, stones and dried roots must be removed. Break large earth clods with a shovel. The prepared soil should be homogeneous, sufficiently loose and oxygenated. Simultaneously with digging, the land plot is also leveled. The pits are covered with earth, and the soil is raked from the hillocks.
A thick lawn won't grow without fertilizer. If the soil type is alkaline, then it is fertilized with peat, and if it is acidic, it is fertilized with lime. Before planting lawn grass on the site, the soil must be fertilized with mineral or organic additives. The best option would be compost or vermicompost. If the soil is very poor, replacing the topsoil will help improve its composition. For this, the area where the lawn grass is planned to be planted is dug up, removed upper layer soil up to 40 cm deep. The depleted soil is taken out, and fertile soil is laid in its place.
Leveling and compaction of the site is a crucial stage in the work. Before sowing the lawn grass with your own hands, the soil must be leveled with a rake and compacted. Good compaction is carried out using a garden roller or a small barrel of water. The area prepared for planting should be compacted to such an extent that a person passing through it does not sink into the ground with their feet.
How to properly sow lawn grass on the site? To begin with, you will have to make shallow grooves on the tamped surface of the earth. The sowing depth should not exceed 1 cm, otherwise small seeds will not sprout. Lawn planting lines are first made horizontally, and then vertically of the site. It is required to remember the seed consumption rates recommended by the manufacturer. After the seeds are planted, all grooves must be carefully covered with earth and rolled with a roller or barrel.

Lawn care

It is not enough to know how to sow your lawn with your own hands - you need to understand how to care for it after planting. To get friendly seedlings, it is important to organize the first watering correctly. The best option is to use special sprayers with a fine irrigation function, then puddles will not form on the surface, and the seeds will not float. If the seeds are planted on rainy days, then the first watering can be skipped.

How to properly care for crops? If everything is done correctly, then the first shoots can be seen within two weeks after planting. The grass emerges and develops unevenly, so don't panic if your lawn area looks a bit bald at first. The real picture of the future lawn can be seen only four weeks after planting the lawn grass.

During hot seasons, the lawn should be watered every day.

It is necessary to mow the regrown blades of grass if their length has reached 10 cm. A haircut is needed both for aesthetics and to stimulate the growth of new grass.

The soil must be prepared for a minimum of 10-14 days before the seeds enter the ground. During this time, the soil will be able to settle.
In the spring, the grass emerges within 20 days, and in the summer this period is reduced to 7 days.
To minimize the amount of weeds that sprout along with the grass, sowing is best done in the fall.
Fertile soil should not be dug deeply, so excessive shrinkage of the site can be avoided.
In order for the site to be sown evenly, it is pre-divided into squares.
The first 7 days after sowing, the lawn is watered with a watering can or an autonomous sprayer. So you can keep air access to the sprouts that have not yet broken through the thickness of the earth.
They acquire seed material with a margin, because if the germination rate is weak, then it will be necessary to fill in the empty spaces.
If the weather is very hot outside (over + 30 ° C), it is not recommended to fertilize the seedlings, otherwise the root system will burn out.

Only if all the rules are followed will it be possible to grow a beautiful lawn without weeds and bald spots.

Photo gallery

Here you can see in the photo how you can decorate landscape design any plot with a lawn.

To create on the plot in front of the house beautiful lawn, you need not only to plant the grass, but also to properly prepare the soil. After that, you need to take care of the sprouted greens, otherwise it will quickly fade.

Do-it-yourself lawn in the country

First, you need to choose the type of coverage that the gardener wants to get. It is not necessary to plant only green grass. There are the following types of lawns:

an ordinary green carpet of field or mountain plants;
meadow or Moorish type with a flowering layer;
a sporty look that resists abrasion well.

The technique of lawn planting, its watering, aeration, mowing and feeding depends on this choice.

Note! No general rules breakdown of such a coverage, but there are some principles of work when planting a lawn.

People often wonder when is the best time to sow a site with purchased seeds or sprouts. On average, these works take from 1 to 1.5 months. To start and finish decorating the lawn in the country on time, it is better to choose the time from late spring to early autumn. Most often, gardeners begin to carry out such work from the end of May, and finish in early September. The main thing is that this period of time does not cover the winter.

Lawn grass

It is better to sow the seeds after preparatory activities for laying out a lawn in the country. Most often this is done in the summer, in mid-June, but you can postpone this procedure closer to autumn.

Preparing the soil for planting seeds

First, they mark the future lawn. They clean it from weeds, debris, level it. Country cottage area divided into squares, in one of which it is planned to arrange a grassy carpet.

Note! It is necessary to carefully prepare for the specified work, since later they will eliminate the need to weed the planted bushes and greatly simplify their haircut.

It will take from 7 to 30 days to independently carry out preparatory activities. If the farmer lives in the southern regions or central Russia, then you can start work in the last days of May. For the inhabitants of Siberia, this period is shifted by 1 month closer to autumn. The ground must be well warmed up, otherwise the seedlings may die.

When marking an area for a lawn, you need immediately lay flower beds, paths or paths. To do this, apply simple technology using twine and pegs. No need to strive to give the lawn strict geometric shapes, since the sown areas will look harmonious in the absence of clear boundaries.
Thereafter, leveling the site, eradicating stumps (if any), removing debris and stones. If the soil is poor in minerals, then nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers are applied to it.
The correct approach to weed control and harmful insects consists in treating the area to be cleaned with herbicides and preparations that kill pests. Geotextiles are often used for these purposes. It provides an even coverage of the area chosen for the lawn.

Preparing the soil for the lawn

After the preliminary works you can start creating the herbal composition.

Step-by-step instructions for sowing a lawn with seeds

Before sowing grass, you need to check the type of soil in the country. It is good when it is fertile, it can pass air, retain water. If this is not the case, then the soil is dug up, and then superphosphate is added to it.

At the dacha, these works will take from 3 to 7 days. You should pay attention to the following points:

with increased acidity of the earth - this parameter is brought back to normal by adding chalk or slaked lime to the soil;
when sowing in spring - the main emphasis is on nitrogen fertilizers, and if the sowing of grass is moved closer to autumn, then superphosphate is used;
after that, the land is loosened and watered;
the entire section is rolled with a special roller, the mass of which can vary between 50-100 kg.

When this work is completed, they wait another 4-5 days, and then weed the weeds that have appeared.

How to sow lawn grass with your own hands:

First, the entire territory of the future lawn is divided into pieces of equal size. The purchased seeds are then distributed to the marked areas.
Before sowing the grass, it is necessary to spray water on the ground using special attachment on the hose. The soil should be slightly moist and loose enough.
When to sow lawn grass, the summer resident himself determines. Experts recommend doing this operation on a sunny, calm day. Selected seeds are manually scattered in the field, first along the territory, and then across.
Gardeners often have questions about what to do if the summer is rainy, how to sow lawn grass. It is recommended to postpone this process closer to autumn.
After it was possible to sow the selected area, it is processed with a French rake. In this case, the seeds are covered with soil, and then everything is rolled with a roller to compact the soil. Then pour water over everything from a hose with a nozzle.

After the grass that is sown on the lawn has appeared, you need to monitor its development. To do this, the emerging weeds are regularly removed, the soil is moistened, the young grass is sheared:

The first shoots appear in 14 days. When they grow up to 10 cm, they are carefully trimmed.
Irrigation of the site is carried out using a spray. The soil should be saturated with moisture by 5 cm. This is necessary to strengthen the roots of the sown grass.

Important! Lawn care must be regular, otherwise the plants will quickly die.

What to choose: seeds or roll lawn

It should be noted that seeds are cheaper than rolls. In the first case, you will have to sow the plot yourself, and when using a ready-made lawn, its installation is included in the price. For independent work It is best to choose bent grass, ryegrass, fescue, and bluegrass seeds.

Field grass seeds

When choosing grass, you need to pay attention to the following parameters:

germination;
resistance to external mechanical stress;
the presence of immunity to various infections;
frost resistance and ability to withstand heat.

When purchasing rolls, you need to know their advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

unpretentiousness and ease of use;
ready-made carpets are well suited for arranging uneven areas.

The only drawback of rolls is their high price.

To get the desired decoration of the site in the form of a green lawn, you need:

first, choose the right place for sowing grass in the country;
then pick up the right seeds;
then carefully prepare the site for processing;
it is not enough to water the soil before sowing the seeds, otherwise they will stick together;
mow and irrigate a new lawn every 20 days with a sprayer;
do not wait for results throughout the year, since a normal lawn is obtained only 24 months after sowing.

Any novice farmer must decide for himself whether to use seeds or purchase a ready-made cover. If the first option is preferable, then you need to carefully follow all the instructions of the specialists, otherwise all the work will go down the drain.

Before sowing lawn grass with your own hands, you should decide on the size and shape of the lawn, outline a place for it, mark the boundaries and completely clear the area from debris, stumps, stones, plants and turf. About diversion groundwater you need to think before creating a lawn, this is a complex and expensive, but necessary event. At high level groundwater, you can raise the entire site by bringing soil to it, or you can make drainage.
If the area of the future lawn is large, and you decide to arrange an underground irrigation system, then do it before creating the lawn.

If you want to use the sod that grows in your area, mow the grass on it, then cut the sod into ribbons 25-30 cm wide, then cut each tape into pieces 50 cm long and about 5 cm thick.Place these pieces of turf in the shade and regularly water before laying on Right place... If the sod is not supposed to be used to create a hectare zone, make compost out of it by placing pieces of sod according to the method - grass to grass, earth to ground, then water the resulting pile, and you will get excellent compost.

We remove weeds and all excess from the soil

In a small area, it is quite possible to select the weed rhizomes by hand. You cannot skip this operation, the "undefeated" weeds will surely take revenge and cause you a lot of trouble.
If the area under the lawn is large, chemical methods of weed control can be used - treat the entire area where the sowing lawn will be sown or the rolled lawn will be spread with a general herbicide, such as Roundup.

Read the instructions carefully and use personal protection methods! After 4-5 weeks after treatment, the weeds will die off. Remember, if a drop of herbicide accidentally falls on some growing next to the future lawn garden plant, it will die off too. Sometimes (especially if the weather is warm and rainy), re-treatment with herbicide is required.

Burying any foreign objects such as stones, stumps, tree roots, construction debris in the ground is categorically excluded! Unfortunately, sometimes this rule is neglected and in such places you get spots of a lawn of a different color of greenery, you look unsympathetic. Remove everything unnecessary from the soil under the lawn - there are no exceptions to this rule.

Preparing the soil for the lawn

You need to assess the soil that your lawn will grow on. If you have a loamy, fertile soil with neutral acidity, then this is just what you need! It remains to fertilize it a little and the lawn is ready for sowing. For fertilization, you can use humus or compost, at the rate of 1 bucket per square meter.
Unfortunately, such soil is extremely rare, so you will have to create the soil for the lawn yourself. If you work hard, you can create a good lawn in any soil situation, you just need to carefully prepare the soil, sow good seeds, do everything carefully and on time.
If the soil is clayey, before digging it is necessary to add, in addition to the above fertilizers, a bucket of coarse-grained river sand per 1 m2.

Sandy and sandy loam soils are light, it is a pleasure to cultivate them, but there are few nutrients in them, and even they are quickly washed out, with such soils to work and work - apply a lot of organic and mineral fertilizers, and also water often. To "weigh down" such soils, you need to add clay and compost to them.

Not the best way and the creation of a lawn on drained peatlands. Peat is not a suitable soil for a lawn, it consists of non-decomposed organic matter... Plants (and lawn grasses, including!) On peat starve. Such soil should be dug up with sand, compost, humus, and mineral fertilizers with a predominance of phosphorus and potassium.
Acidic soil must be deoxidized using ground limestone or dolomite flour by adding doses corresponding to the initial acidity.

So, pour soil-improving additives on the surface of the existing soil in layers - sand or clay, peat, if necessary, deoxidizers, do not forget about mineral and organic fertilizers- and dig thoroughly with a shovel (this is best) or a walk-behind tractor (this is easier and easier) until complete homogeneity, carefully selecting the weeds.

Digging the soil

Digging is the hardest physical labor when creating a lawn. You need to dig up to the depth of the shovel bayonet! In the process of digging, be sure to select the remaining weeds, roots and stones, and also carefully break up clods of earth, the clods should not be more than 1 cm (it is convenient to remember - no more than corn grain).

Lumps of soil are broken with feet, a rake or a cultivator. If this work is carried out by hired workers, carefully monitor the process, careful digging is one of the most important operations when creating a lawn.

Leveling the soil (grading)

The next important step is to level the soil with a rake. The soil should be perfectly level, without depressions and mounds. Lawn soil preparation must be carried out in dry weather.

Leveling the soil

When leveling and subsequent tamping, be sure to make a slope from the house of 3-15 degrees. If you are developing a new site, and it is planned to lay utilities, a road and path network, an automatic irrigation system on it, then this is done after the vertical planning, but before the lawn is arranged.

Leveling the soil

Soil rolling

It is absolutely necessary to further compact the soil well with a roller or rammer. The rammer is a log, to the bottom of which a sheet of thick plywood is nailed (it will ram it!), And a small stick is nailed to the top, which you will hold with both hands. Lightweight plastic rollers are now being sold and filled with sand or water on site.

The site should be tamped down so that no shoe marks remain on the soil prepared for sowing the lawn. Walk around in running shoes and you will see if the planted area is properly prepared. It is good to wait a month or a month and a half after that, moistening the soil and destroying the emerging weeds, but as a last resort, if it is completely unbearable to wait, water the soil and wait at least a week or two.

How to sow a lawn with your own hands?

So, the soil for the lawn is prepared, the mixture of lawn grasses is selected, purchased required amount... How to calculate this required amount?

The seeding rate for lawn grasses in the literature ranges from 30 to 50 g / m2, it seems to me that the most optimal seeding rate is 50 g / m2. My own experience, as well as the experience of my neighbors and garden friends, confirms this. When calculating the weight of seeds for your lawn, be sure to add in reserve seeds (1 kg / hundred square meters), next spring the lawn will have to be sown somewhere. For example, if you need to sow a hundred square meters of land, then you need to buy 0.05 kg / m2 x 100 m2 + 1 kg = 6 kg of lawn seeds.

Sowing the lawn can be done at any time, starting from spring (when the ground has already dried up) and up to the end of August, the main thing is that the weather is calm and not rainy.

On a base carefully prepared according to all the rules described above, we sow seeds of lawn grasses. A lawn with an area exceeding one hundred square meters can be divided into several equal parts by making borders with thin sticks or shallow grooves.

Then divide the seeds into the same number of equal parts, this technique will help you sow more evenly if you are not yet an experienced lawn seeder. Along the paths, blind areas and borders of flower beds, you need to sow thicker. Use it if you are planting by hand or if you are using a lawn seeder. It is necessary to sow in such a direction as to go from the sown part to the not yet sown part, and not vice versa.

Sowing the lawn

After sowing, it is advisable to either rake the area slightly with a rake (shallow, to a depth of no more than 1 cm!), Or sprinkle it with a thin layer of humus, compost or black peat (0.5 cm). For light soils, you can roll the soil with the sown seeds again, this accelerates the emergence of seedlings and increases the intensity of their growth; on heavy clay soils, it is better not to do this. The seeds will germinate better if you cover the freshly seeded lawn with white lutrasil, in addition, the lutrasil will protect the seeds from birds.

Lay the sheets of lutrasil with an overlap, connecting them with metal studs or long nails, inserting them into the ground.
Make sure that the soil remains moist at all times. This is very important, the seeds lie almost on the surface, so the top layer should not dry out. If the weather is dry, then daily watering is required using a watering can or a hose with a sprinkler, a strong stream is completely unacceptable.

Watering the lawn

If there is no watering during this period during a drought, the seeds may sprout and dry out, and the lawn will not work. Good fresh seeds begin to germinate 5-14 days after sowing. When the grown grass begins to lift, remove it. If you delay and do not remove the lutrasil in time, the grass will sprout into it, and you will remove the non-woven material along with the newborn sprouts.

At first, lawn seedlings look unsightly, this is usually very frustrating for the owners, but do not worry if you look after and care for them correctly, it will not take much time and the lawn will become one of your garden treasures. The first 3-4 weeks after the emergence of seedlings, walking on the lawn is strictly not allowed, try not to walk on the lawn of the first year of life at all!

If you need to destroy a suddenly formed weed, approach it in the prescribed wide board... If the weather is dry, daily watering of the young lawn is absolutely necessary! When the grass grows to the width of a palm, it is about 10-12 cm, it should be cut the first time, most often this happens about a month after sowing.

The first mowing is best done at the highest mowing level of your mower, most often 6-7 cm. The lawn mower knife should always be sharp, this is especially important during the first mowing, a blunt knife will simply tear out the grass that is still weakly rooted.

Only use a lawnmower with a collection container. Well, then you should mow weekly, gradually lowering the cutting height, bringing it eventually to the lower level, somewhere around 2-3 cm. A young lawn requires careful manual weeding. With proper preparation of the soil for the lawn, feeding in the first year is not needed.

Video: how to sow lawn grass with your own hands

A beautiful, well-groomed lawn near the house - this picture pleases not only the look. Emerald herb emphasizes architectural solutions, allocates flower beds, ridges, alpine slides... It doesn't take much time to make a lawn with your own hands, but you need to know how to do it correctly.

Almost all lawns are based on grass. There are different types, with different characteristics, in different colors... Not all of them do well in the climate of central Russia. Therefore, if you are going to buy a ready-made mixture, pay attention to zoning: in the first winter you risk losing the entire lawn.

You need to be especially careful with ryegrass. It rises quickly, creates a thick beautiful carpet, but does not tolerate frost well and freezes in our climate. When buying a ready-made herbal mixture, see its composition: there should be a little ryegrass. If it freezes, great harm from this it will not.

When to sow the grass

You can sow grass from May 1 to August 15. For spring sowing, slightly increase the seed consumption per square of area (by 10-15%). So you will get a beautiful lawn faster and the lawn will leave stronger in winter. Due to the high density, the plants will begin to compete with each other and the weak will be crowded out. Only the strong will survive until the fall.

When sowing in summer, adhere to the application rate. Due to lack of time, weak plants will not have time to displace, but everyone will be weakened by this struggle. Therefore, good maintenance is important for summer lawns.

What is the best lawn grass

The most beautiful color and dense grass stand in fescue and bluegrass. Their greens are delicate and emerald. When creating a parthene lawn, they are used. But for other types of lawns, on which they will walk, they cannot be used: they will quickly trample. On such lawns, boulders are more often sown. different varieties... Not so gentle, it tolerates some degree of stress well.

For shady lawns, fescue is also more suitable. But even she will not grow in deep and permanent shadow. Sunlight is the basis of photosynthesis. And at least some time the lawn should be lit.

Types of lawns

We are accustomed to the fact that a lawn is necessarily a grass covering the soil. It can be arranged, rabatki, and other decorative elements. This is not entirely true. There are at least three more varieties of flowering lawns. They are undoubtedly more decorative, but you will hardly be able to walk on them.

Blooming lawns

They are based on cereals, but significantly "diluted" with perennial or annual flowering plants. They are selected so that flowering takes place during the entire growing season - from mid-spring to late autumn. Depending on what kind of plants are included in the composition, there are three types of flowering lawns.

Lugovoi

Already from the name it is clear that the composition of the plants that can be seen in a real meadow. Only rarely in its entirety and in strictly measured proportions. Added to the cereals are traditional grassland dwellers such as clover, chamomile, daisy, monotonous loosestrife, yarrow and other flowering or ornamental foliage plants. Despite the abundance of flowers, the main ones are herbs.

The meadow lawn is highly decorative. Different plants bloom at different times and the species is constantly changing, the palette changes

It is clear that you will not often mow such beauty, but once or twice a season you have to cut it for renewal and rejuvenation. Plants are perennial, therefore, with proper watering, they quickly restore decorativeness. Sowing the entire territory with such a mixture is not always appropriate, but some zones are very pleasing to the eye.

Mauritanian

It differs in that the flowers are used for annuals. Therefore, such a lawn is not cut at all. Grains are picked up by undersized ones, there are fewer of them than flowers. Flowers dominate the Moorish lawn. Both in height and in quantity (look at the photo).

It looks like a Moorish lawn - a riot of colors all season

They are selected so that the flowering is as long as possible. Usually in the composition of poppy seed, cornflower, calendula, matiola, large-flowered flax, escholzia and other bright annuals.

Non-herbal

This is a completely unusual lawn in composition, consisting of ground cover plants. Sow them in open ground- a hopeless business, growing seedlings is a long time, and buying ready-made is expensive. Therefore, a non-grass lawn has been grown for more than one year or two: plants are planted in small quantities, waiting for them to grow. It is most difficult to grow such a lawn with your own hands: the results of labor are visible only after a few years, but the effort is worth it.

Unconventional lawn - ungrassy made from ground cover arsthenia

Grass lawns

From a layman's point of view different types grass lawns are almost the same: the color may be slightly different. But apart from different shades they have greenery different characteristics: you can walk on one, on the other - it is contraindicated, the seeding rate is different, different care is required. Naturally used different herbs with different characteristics.

Ordinary

The most resistant to trampling, you can walk on it. Grasses are selected from tough, rough-looking. But it is easier to care for it, less often to weed, some mistakes, which are often made when self-sowing, are not visible. An ordinary lawn is an excellent choice for a summer cottage.

Parterre

This is one of the most decorative and ceremonial lawns. Differs in high decorativeness, herbs are selected delicate, beautiful colors. The grass is low and dense, with proper care it looks just gorgeous. Such lawns are suitable for open places, but where no one will walk: too soft cereals will not withstand such a load. Therefore, the parterre lawn (see photo) is sown where they only walk along the paths.

The parterre lawn is one of the most decorative and "smart"

Special

It is planted on slopes. As part of its herbs, which have extensive root system, capable of keeping the soil from washing out. The decorativeness of such a coating is average, but it performs its main purpose well. A special lawn can be planted on a slope leading to a river or lake, if there is one on your site.

Sports

The mixture is more complex - in addition to traditional varieties of cereals, there are special ones that are more resistant to abrasion. Decorativeness sports turf its main characteristic is not, therefore, even a very well-groomed one, looks much worse than an ordinary one, and even more so a parterre. But it has a very high abrasion resistance.

Due to the use of special herbs, its cost is higher, more difficult to care for. Therefore, sowing with such a mixture is those zones that will be actively exploited: a playground, an area where they will actively walk - near the gazebo, sports ground,. The rest of the area is most often set aside for an ordinary lawn.

It's better to sow a sports turf

Natural

For this type of coating, mixtures are not bought, no work is carried out. They just cut the grasses that are. Most often, a natural lawn is left in the garden: it protects the soil well from drying out, and the requirements for decorativeness are not very high here. Plants that are too large and do not fit the desired pattern are removed manually. The rest in the process of haircuts become smaller and smaller, forming sod of different colors.

How to make a beautiful lawn

Growing a lawn consists of several stages:

Soil preparation - removing weeds, if necessary - adjusting acidity and increasing fertility.
Sowing grass, regular watering.
First haircut. It is carried out after the stand reaches a certain size.
Regular grooming and occasional haircut.

In the process, you will have to monitor soil moisture and promptly remove weeds, from time to time to feed, sow bald spots that may appear after an overly dry summer or too harsh winter. This, in short, is the whole technology of growing a lawn, and then in detail point by point.

Soil preparation

The first thing to do is to assess the fertility of the soil. If the soil is clay or loam, the grass will not grow normally on it. You will have to do some serious soil preparation. There are two options: fill the area with fertile soil from above, or remove the soil and fill in the soil in the formed foundation pit.

It's easier, of course, to just fall asleep, but this is not always possible to implement: the layer of earth in this case should be about 20 cm. Raising the lawn to such a height is not the most reasonable solution: there will be problems with water drainage, high, well-fortified curbs are required, and the outer it looks strange. Therefore, they often remove clay soils to a depth of 15-20 cm, and then the earth is brought into the formed foundation pit.

If you chose the second option, you can lay it on the bottom of the pit. He will not let it sprout through him weeds and you won't have any problems with weeding.

If the soil is normal, preparing the soil for lawn grass is not so difficult. All weeds are removed first. This can be done mechanically - with a hoe and / or by hand, you can use herbicides. They are bred according to the instructions, watered the place of the future lawn. After a few days, the vegetation turns yellow and dries up, it is removed. Simultaneously with the release from weeds, stones, roots, and other fragments that can interfere with the growth of the horse system are removed.

The next step is to check the acidity of the soil. Nearly all grasses in turf mixtures thrive on neutral soils. If you want to have a beautiful lawn, you will have to correct its acidity. Therefore, in a store for gardeners and gardeners, find a kit for determining the acidity of the soil and check what kind of soil is on your site. This is just a litmus test that you need to lay on the soil, wait until it is colored and, using the color chart on the package, determine the acidity of your soil. If the soil is acidic, add lime, if the reaction is alkaline, sprinkle crushed peat. Next comes the digging. Simultaneously with loosening, remove those stones and roots that come across.

In swampy soils, in order to grow a beautiful lawn, it is necessary to create normal conditions for water drainage.

The next step is to add a fertile layer. Fertile loose and light soil is brought in and distributed throughout the entire plot in an even layer 6-10 cm thick. The layer is leveled first with shovels, then with a rake. In this case, it is advisable to form a slight slope towards the fence: this way you will not have problems with waterlogging the lawn in showers: water will drain from the site. The slope is made minimal - 1 cm per meter or one and a half. This is quite enough to ensure the outflow of water, but outwardly it will not be noticeable.

Preparing the soil for the lawn - leveling with a rake

One tip: Imported land contains roots, stones, twigs, etc. To remove them, it is sieved through a coarse mesh (as is done during construction, when sand is sieved). And the sifted one is already being transported around the site.

The next step in arranging a lawn with your own hands is tamping or rolling. It allows you to compact the soil, and when a person steps on the lawn, the soil under the foot does not crumble, but remains flat. Also, this process allows you to identify irregularities that will necessarily appear as a result of all earthwork.

If there is no special roller, it can be made from a piece of asbestos or iron pipe. You put a rod inside the pipe, you hook the handles to it (even though you just tie a rope). You made the entire lawn roller with your own hands. Now he is dragged around the site, tamping the soil until it can stand on it without falling through.

Lawn rolling - important stage that allows you to identify irregularities. To do this, use a lawn roller (or make it from a pipe, barrel)

When rolling the lawn, humps and pits will certainly appear. We remove the surplus from the humps, fill the holes. Having leveled the surface in this way, we take a lawn roller and once again go through the site. To get a perfectly flat surface, you can take a long board and stretch it together along the site, cutting off the unevenness with an edge. Or make a device from two boards - as in the photo below. They can work alone.

Preparing a lawn area includes careful leveling of the soil

Fertilization

Fertilizers can be applied at several stages (one of them). In principle, if you pour 6-10 cm of imported fertilizer on top of normal soil, you can not use fertilizers. But for more active growth, you can add:

after the imported soil has been scattered over the site and before leveling with a rake;
if dry fertilizers are used, they can be mixed with the seeds;
dilute and water the soil.

Most optimal way- watering. It guarantees a more even distribution of nutrients. But with this method, rarely does anyone want to bother himself, unless there is. The other two are equivalent. It is more convenient to apply together with the seeds: it takes less time.

We plant grass

First, it is necessary to loosen the rammed earth a little with a rake. Just walk with a light rake, loosening the top layer slightly. Now you can sow the grass.

Buying a seeder that costs about $ 200-300 for a single use is hardly reasonable, therefore, pour the seeds for the lawn into a bucket, and the old ones grandfather's method scatter over the surface: take a handful and pass it little by little through your fingers, scatter more or less evenly. For those who want at least some kind of mechanization, you can offer two options for the simplest seeders for lawn grass, which are easy to make with your own hands. Is it a tin or plastic bottle, in which they made holes (see photo).

So that it does not happen that it is dense in one corner and empty in the other, it is advisable to divide the plot and seeds into parts. Seed consumption is indicated for each mixture. What is the area of the sown area, you can estimate on the spot and measure the amount that needs to be scattered. For those who make a lawn in the country with their own hands for the first time, it is better to divide the measured amount into two equal parts and go through the section first along and then across. This will distribute the seeds more evenly.

After sowing, the seeds must be covered with earth. There are two ways to do this:

Walk around the site with a rake, trying to sprinkle the seeds with earth. This method is less reliable - many remain outside, they are pecked by birds, and germination is deteriorating.
Sprinkle on top with the remnants of the imported earth. Layer - 3-5 mm. All seeds are obtained covered with earth, are in better conditions, the seedlings are better.

Watering and waiting

Watering the lawn is necessary depending on the conditions: the soil should not dry out, but it should not be very wet either. Water should not gush out in a large stream, there should be no streams or puddles. Break the stream into small streams: install a sprinkler or sprinkler, if you water manually, put a nozzle on the hose. In the photo above, you will see several options that will help solve the watering problem. They are sold in stores.

There are also several homemade lawn sprinklers available. Most have a perforated plastic bottle connected to a garden hose. She can lie and irrigate the adjacent area. If there is enough pressure in the system, you can tie it to a column. In this case, the watering area will be larger. Do-it-yourself sprinklers for watering the lawn are very simple to make. Look at the photo.

Another way to get fine splashes: in a cut plastic pipe punch holes or make a thin cut. Either thin jets or a fan are obtained (in the photo below on the right).

Why does the water need to be sprayed? Because for the normal development of the root system, the soil must be moist (but not wet) to a depth of about 6-10 cm.If it is simply flooded from above, this will only make matters worse: water displaces oxygen and the roots have nothing to breathe. So sprinkling or is the best way to water your lawn.

After seven to ten days, the first shoots appear. They are still rare, but don't be upset. Only the seeds of some varieties have hatched, in which shoots appear quickly. The rest germinate later. With proper care, after 20-30 days, the height of the grass stand reaches 10-15 cm. At this time, the first mowing should be carried out. Leave about 5 cm in height the first time. At this height, the grass will grow actively. After another 10-12 days, it will again be about 12 cm high.Now you can cut the grass shorter - leaving 3-3.5 cm.

How to care for your lawn grass

The main care is timely watering, weed removal and occasional mowing. If you water with sprinkling, the soil will contain a sufficient amount of oxygen and the plants should develop normally.

Problems with a lack of oxygen can arise after prolonged heavy showers, when the water stands in puddles on the site or when improper watering with the same result. Then aeration of the lawn is necessary. To do this, use a roller similar to the one used to tamp the soil, but this one has points that pierce the sod. Through these punctures, oxygen enters the soil, the plants begin to grow better.