Hi and welcome to Garden Ninja.
Today I'm going to be doing a demonstration of how to lay turf now it may sound really
easy to lay turf but the key is preparation.
If you fail to prepare your turf will never sit right and you will end up with lumps and
bumps, dry bits, bits that don't grow correctly.
So preparation is key!
You're going to need a couple of bits of key equipment to lay turf.
The first is a sharp spade to either remove existing turfs or break the ground up.
The second is a riddle, which is like a giant sieve you can put dirt and soil in to remove
rocks and debris.
The third is a garden fork to break up and aerate the soil and lastly is a good sturdy
garden rake, which allows you to move the soil around and remove stones and debris.
Also to create tilth, which we will come onto later.
What you need to do now is to take your fork or spade and dig over the ground or plot where
its going to be turfed.
This is really important as it add air and starts to break up compacted soil.
If you were just to lay the turf directly on top of this compacted soil it may struggle
to root.
What you're also trying to do is to get rid of any rocks and debris that might be under
the surface of the soil.
Again this would impact the growth of the turf if left in there.
This is also known as single digging were you take out whats known as a 'Spits depth'
of soil which is one spades depth, and then you are moving it around so you're breaking
up the top layer.
Using the riddle, you can then riddle out any of the stones or debris.
You should now also add some organic matterto the soil you have already prepared.
Here I'm using mushroom compost and you can see the heat rising off it because its so
fresh!
Using your measuring tape, some canes and twine measure out the exact area that you
are going to be turfing.
What you can do with the canes, is tweak them to make sure they're straight.
If you're going for a straight edge finish.
SO what I've done is measured it out, and double checked the width of the borders against
my garden design plan, and then I can start to compress the soil by tamping it down with
my feet.
The reason why you do this is to remove any air pockets or any inconsistencies in the
soil without compacting it.
So you're just making sure it's all nicely pushed together and ready for the turf to
be laid on top.
So we're pretty much level now for where the turfs going to go its been compressed by treading
I've raked it in both directions, horizontally and then 90 degress the other way, what you
need to do now is using a clean straight edged piece of wood is use it in a push and pull
action just to make sure its level and you'll soon see if there are any gaps, lumps or bumps
that you may need to fill in and re-rake.
Now you always need to make sure that you have more turf than technically you need thats
to make sure that you can use the best slices and when you move them around you have enough
for overlaps and if anything happens you can replace them, so you always over estimate
and then any that you don't use, you can always turn them upside down put them in the bottom
of a bed, or at the base of some bushes at the back of a border and they will just rot
down into compost anyway so its never wasted.
So now the preparation work has been done you can see here we have a level base for
the turf and has whats known as a 'fine tilth' on top, which is kind of a like a small breadcrumb
of soil which the turf can then be laid on.
So I'm going to move on now and lay the turf.
So using the board, put it down on the ground you;re preparing and lay out the first roll
of turf.
Unrolling it fully.
Then take the second roll of turf and lay it out against the first.
You're doing this in a brickwork fashion to reduce the amount of joins you have against
each other so what you want is staggered joints and not one big joint down the middle and
that's why you stagger them.
As you can see here I'm moving around staggering the joints of the turf.
Trying to keep the pieces as large as possible.
What you don't want to do is end up with lots of tiny pieces stuck together because they
are more likely to dry out and not root as easily as using larger pieces butted up against
each other.
This is also why we use the rule of 10% extra of the size of grass you actually need so
you can cut larger pieces rather than using smaller pieces which may dry out.
When it comes to cutting the turfs a sharp knife is the best option.
You should never rip the turfs as this may damage them and it probably wont give you
the smartest finish.
So always use a clean sharp knife.So I've just finished laying the turf and as you will
ahev seen I was arranging it in a brick work fashion that means you never get a line of
joints that are more likely to dry out in a straight line, so you are basically reducing
the chance of water loss by keeping the joints staggered.
So what we're going to do now is to water this in and make sure it stays damp or moist
so it can root with that lovely tilth thats on the surface.
Jobs a good one!