A gardening expert has urged all green thumbs to do one vital lawn task this month to help keep their garden healthy, while also looking great in the process. TikTok creator Michael Griffiths gave gardeners a heads up on three mini-jobs they should be doing to their lawns.
In a recent TikTok video, Michael shared his short list of “essential” jobs to do in September to keep your garden in tip top shape. Autumn is the perfect time to get on top of garden maintenance, especially when it comes to lawn care. There are three simple steps you should consider doing now to keep your lawn looking fresh and feeling healthy for the rest of the year.
Firstly, Michael recommended scarifying the lawn. To prep the ground, you can use an aerator, scarifier, or even a garden fork. This is to poke holes directly into the soil to help the water drain in.
Scarifying works by using rotating blades on a machine to cut into the lawn, removing layers of dead grass, moss, and debris, and stimulating grass growth.
Scarifying is a lawn care process of using mechanical blades or tines to cut into and remove a dense layer of thatch – dead grass, roots, and organic matter – from a lawn. This removal improves the lawn’s health by allowing better airflow, water, and nutrient penetration to the soil.
You should also aerate your lawn too. Lawn aeration involves perforating the soil to create holes that allow air, water, and nutrients to reach the grass roots, relieving compaction and improving root health.
To aerate, use a core, spike aerator, or a garden fork during September or later in the autumn to ensure the soil is moist beforehand. Aerating your lawn will help stimulate. deeper root growth, reduces thatch, and helps the lawn withstand drought and disease.
B&Q advised to give your lawn a good amount of water to help the soil absorb moisture. It also explained that the best time to aerate the lawn is actually one or two days after a rain shower, while the soil is moist.
However, it’s best to avoid aerating lawns after “extremely” heavy rainfall, as the ground could become waterlogged.
Once the lawn is scarified and aerated, you can add plenty of grass seed. However, Michael explained that the grass seed should be switched from a summer lawn feed to an autumn feed.
Autumn lawn feeds are rich in potassium and phosphates which help to encourage root growth rather than leafy growth, explained Gardeners World. It wrote: “Putting on root growth means the grass will be able to absorb more nutrients and water come the following spring, which will result in more leafy growth when you need it.”
The Royal Horticultural Society advised fertilising the lawn before rain is forecast. However if it doesn’t rain, be sure to give the lawn a water.
When it comes to choosing which autumn lawn feed is right for your lawn, keep in mind that synthetic fertilisers use a lot of resources and energy and may harm the environment where they are manufactured.
