five weeks ago i planted up a series of seed trials for some of the top manufacturers in the uk
in this video we're going to be looking at the first cut of these seeds
how the different brands are performing applying the first dose of fertiliser
and we're going to be checking in at some of the more detailed results welcome back to the third
episode of the best grass seed series where for those of you haven't seen parts one and parts two
i'll leave links to those down in the description below but essentially i took some of the top
quality seeds from throughout the uk and planted them up in these see-through containers to
monitor the growing progress over a number of weeks if you're new to my channel please
hit the subscribe button for more diy lawn care content and all the products that i'm featuring
in the video can be found in the links below let's take a look at an overview of the different trays
this is around four weeks into the experiment you can start to see there is a lots of
different germination that's happening and you can see the difference in the different
types of blends between the finer leaves of the fescues and the more thicker leaves of the rye
i have noticed that different mixes are starting to show their characteristics
a little bit for example you can see on the left hand side this rolawn minster pro
this is a slow growing fescue mix and it will take longer to thicken up but that's the nature of the
grass seed itself and it should also give you a finer more thinly bladed lawn at the end of it
so you can't really compare any of these seeds like for like it just depends on what you're
looking for and different qualities the different cultivars can give to you as the end user
so you can see here the two mixes from a1 lawns again both of these are starting to
thicken up and perhaps two of the most thick varieties are the platinum pro from
a1 and the premiership pro is also looking quite good which is a seed mix that i used on my front
lawn renovation which i'll link up below you can see again some of the mixes which are more
heavily based on fescues have taken a little bit longer to thicken up and they don't like all these
cold temperatures that we've been having and the significant amounts of rain the last two after
the four weeks we've got the two blends from horror seeds the hard-wearing mix on the right
i'm just pulling out some of the small weeds like i would normally do
during germination in my lawn and the all-american dark green which is also
thickened up really nicely i'm actually listing this variety on my own website at the moment so
you can check that out in the link below if you're interested in that particular cultivar
looking top down you can see just a different perspective on some of the seeds
i'm finding a bit of a balance between putting the lids on when it's raining a little bit too much
i probably need to stick some drainage holes
in these things just to make them a bit less maintenance
but you can actually see the leaves of the grass just
coming over the top of the containers and we're ready for the first cut
if you're looking a little bit closer you can
start to see again the different blends of the rye and the fescue
this is the fescue mix
and you can see here some of the really lighter shoots of the rye
which are starting to take up a multi-leaf shooting stage of the grass
here's how things look after five weeks
you can see now some of the boxes have really thickened up and i've just done a
quick fertiliser of some pre-seed fertiliser on my main lawn project which i'll link to when it
comes out in the card above and i'll throw a bit down on these boxes just to see how that turns out
i'm going to be using these ars shears now these are beautifully designed really well
balanced and an absolute joy to use i do have to disclose that i've become a distributor
for this product range and i'll be listing these on my website these sheers are really
sort of towards the top end of the range they're fantastic quality i really enjoy how they feel
in hand they're quite lightweight and balanced and all the parts are actually interchangeable
so the company really market these as a product for life really where you can replace the parts
with a professional quality finish this particular model is actually a professional quality
hedge shear and you can just hear the quality as the blades go over one another
as soon as they came through the post i was just blown away by the feel they're really well
balanced in the hand and i actually just walk around the garden looking for something to cut
okay so back on the grass seed you can see here this is the am25 general purpose
really nice and thick now
next we're moving on to the am9 the shady mix
i'm actually keeping a lookout for this one because i've got a bit in the back
right hand side of the garden that tends to get mostly sun it doesn't catch it in the
morning because of the fence and also it seems to attract a lot of water in that area as well
just zooming right in here you can see the lighter brighter more established rye
and sitting within there the more finer leaves of the fescue
i've just dropped some of that fertiliser down into the boxes
that's going to last maybe a couple of days or so before it dissolves
and hopefully then that'll power on the grass through to thicken up before the winter comes
so here's a bit of an overview of all the different boxes five weeks in
again lots of strong competition here all looking pretty good
i haven't seen too much in terms of colour difference
you can see most of them are quite a similar colour for now
you can see here's the state of my lawn at the moment it's just absolutely bombarded with rain
most of it's come through really nicely got a couple of little spells down here
i'm working on this bit
but i think over the next week or two that's gonna thicken up
and i'm probably just about ready for a cut on the front as well
coming up i've got some detailed q and a questions for all the companies that have been involved
so if you're interested in that please turn the notifications on and subscribe to the channel
and if you'd like any more information about the tools and seeds or the rest of the ars range
check out my website which is linked in the description below
in the meantime here's some videos that you might enjoy