What about you! Welcome to a Premier Lawns Video.
Today we're gonna talk about weed grasses in the lawn and how to prevent them.
So - stick around . . . . . . . .
Welcome back. Now, a couple of weeks ago we did a Video about what to do whenever you have weed grasses actually in your lawn
and how to get rid of them.
This video today, we're gonna focus on how to stop them coming into your lawn to begin with.
Now - to give you guys some background, we actually killed this lawn off
last September, and we've redone it. And guess what. The weeds are actually back!
We're gonna show you all the different ways how we're gonna try and really cut down on them coming into the lawn.
So - some of you guys might be asking, "What is a weed grass?"
If you look up a weed in the dictionary,
it's a plant in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Whenever we take that thought and apply it our lawn, it's actually,
a weed grass is a plant in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And so a weed grass is something, a plant that maybe looks a bit different from the rest of the lawn
or grows at a different rate, or just takes away from the general appearance of the lawn.
So, the weed grasses that are in this lawn, are Yorkshire Fog, and Poa Annua or Annual Meadow Grass.
Here we go here - this is our Annual Meadow Grass.
Easy to spot because of the seed head that grows in your lawn.
You're gonna see a lot of this whenever you start looking for - you're gonna see a lot of it.
The seed heads typically grow from May through to July.
If you really want to control it then now's the time to get on top of it.
The umber one reason why I have so many weed grasses in my lawn, is actually because of this field here.
We have a field beside the lawn, we're getting an awful lot of weed grasses blowing in from here over to there.
There's not that much I can do about this but we're gonna show you different ways
we can maybe minimise the weed grasses from growing.
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The most effective way to control Poa Annua, is actually to take a knife and to cut it.
Now obviously you're not going to be using a knife on a big lawn
so we're gonna look at a couple of different ways
but really we want to be breaking the stoll ons around the grass.
So I have a metal rake here, if you're new to lawn care, if you have a small lawn
you can get away with just using one of these metal tine rakes.
Now, this process , best done before you cut the grass. So I'm gonna show you that now.
But really we want to lift those seed heads up so as we can run the mower over it and get a good cut.
Right guys, now the rake isn't going to be suitable if you have a big garden
or a reasonably sized garden - if you have a scarifier
you cvan use this, but you have to be really careful with it
because we're not meant to be scarifying the lawn, we're just looking to replace the Verti-Cutter.
I don't have a Verti-cutting unit here, so I'm going to take the scarifier and we're gonna set it really high
so as we're just tickling the surface.
For any of you that don't know, this is a scarifyer. So
instead of your normal lawn mower has a
blade that goes round and round
this actually has blades that go like that
we'll just tip this over and show you it.
We have these blades here that go round and round.
and they're gonna cut into the weed grasses.
It is just a matter of trial and error, you can see that
we've just tickled the surface here so we'll just
this is all we're really looking to do, we're just looking to cut and lift up those seed heads.
All right guys - now before we get farther into this video - I just want to tell you about something new that we have
we have a new Facebook Group called the Premier Lawns Community, on Facebook, private group
we share tips and tricks and ideas on how to get your lawn to the next level.
We have people from all over the world! So, make sure you check us out.
All right guys - now we're going to get this tidied up, we're just going to blow all this, and then we're gonna get the grass cut.
And then we're gonna talk about different ways,
other different ways how we can really
stop the Poa Annua with good general lawn care.
Tips and tricks.
So we'll get this tidied up and then we'll start into that.
This is the debris that came out of the lawn.
You can see the sort of thick grass and you see those stalks we're trying to remove.
As I say, we're not looking to get right down into the thatch layer
we're just looking to disrupt those seed heads as much as we can.
So the One Third Rule. Any time you're cutting your grass you don't want to take any more than One Third off your lawn.
Because otherwise you're gonna be putting your lawn under stress
and that's when you're gonna get the weed grasses coming in.
Something worth considering is - fertiliser. Now, whenever you feed your lawn,
you don't want to be putting on too much fertiliser.
If you have a really super dark green lawn, all the time
then you're gonna create the conditions that the weed grasses favour as opposed to the rest of your grass
and alternatively, if you don't feed the lawn enough
then you're gonna create the conditions where the weed grasses are gonna come in and take over your lawn.
So it's all about just a balanced diet.
A lot of people ask me about top dressing and what makes the best top dressing.
What top dressing should they use?
And should they use sand?
Now sand doesn't really have a place in your lawn
and this is gonna hopefully explain it to you
so we're just gonna take a sample out of this lawn.
Now. I top dressed this lawn myself, last May.
This time last May we top dressed this ourselves.
So whenever you put something onto your lawn,
you can't take it off.
We have a core here.
We've taken a sample out and you can clearly see this layer of sand
now if you're always top dressing your lawn with sand
you risk creating a barrier there, here.
Soil is a funny thing and grass is a funny thing so
the grass will happily grow
but then, it'll grow in the sand but whenever it hits the soil, it will stop growing
and this will become a barrier layer
so you'll end up creating a really low profile in your soil.
The roots are just going to grow into this sand layer
and they're not going to go down here
and you're going to end up with a really shallow rooted lawn
and the Poa Annua, annual meadow grass, has shallow roots and you're going to create the conditions that it wants
as opposed to your lawn.
You'll see a lot of YouTubers recommending top dressing sand
and it is good and it's really easy to work with
but you can cause long term damage to your lawn
that is really hard and expensive to put right.
You'll see me using sand in some of the videos - but
you'll also see me - we do an awful lot of aerating
so I can actually aerate through this.
And we'll be aerating a lawn on a regular basis
but for 99.9% of people -
they're not going to have an aerator sitting there!
If you have that sand layer and you're just going to create problems for yourself - so
if you're gonna be top dressing,
pick a good , loamy, soil, top soil or even 70/30
Whenever I say 70/30, you actually want 70 soil and 30 sand.
The only time I would maybe think about using sand is if you know what you're doing, or if you do have
a really sandy lawn to start with.
Another thing you can do to stop the weed grasses is regular aeration
and that's going to get the roots down into the lawn.
Now I know a lot of you guys will say to me, " Robbie, we don't have an aerator, what can we do?"
Now, I have done a previous Video on how to aerate your lawn without any expensive tools.
Overseeding your lawn, a couple of times a year, spring and autumn -
really good way to keep your lawn thick
and it's going to stop the invasion of the weed grasses coming in - so -
definitely, definitely think about overseeding your lawn a couple of times a year to keep it out,
especially whenever you're doing the aerating.
Now, we've made this -
we made this drag mat in a previous Video, cost thirty quid -
less than thirty quid, works really well. So you don't need to be spending a fortune on your lawn
just to have a really good lawn and that's what we're always trying to do with these Videos.
So look - thank you for watching - and I'll see you in the next Video. Goodbye!