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Laying a lawn is a task that’s best left to the professionals especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. However, if you can follow a simple logical process, you’ll save yourself a lot of headache – simply start from the edge and work inwards. If you’re looking to lay your lawn by yourself, then you’ve come to the right place! In this post, we’re going to consider the processes involved in lawn installation in order to ensure your project turns out a success. Let’s take a look!

Firstly, the tools you’re going to need to lay your lawn includes the following – sturdy boots, gardening gloves (should be thick), wheel barrow, garden fork or rotovator, landscaping rake, laying boards, knife or edge trimmer, hosepipe and broom.

1. Start from the outside edge. Install the initial strips horizontally overlapping the boundary a bit (trim the back once done). Press down carefully to make sure there’s a good contact with the soil (make sure not to squash the lawn).
2. Proceed to lay the adjacent pieces till the first row of the lawn along the entire edge is completed.
3. Continue with the next row. If there’s a need to stand on the laid turf, simply make use of a plank so as to avoid squashing or denting the turf. It’s important to ensure the successive rows are staggered to prevent the short edges from lining up.
4. Proceed by butting and pushing the edges to create a tight joint (make sure the turf is not stretched).
5. Use a wood saw or sharp serrated knife to trim any untidy edges. Remember to make use of a plank to ensure you do not walk directly on the turf.
6. Water the newly installed turf adequately to ensure the water penetrates the soil. However, do not turn it into a mud bath.

Aeration, like scarification, is another vital step to keeping your lawn looking healthy and vibrant. It involves making small holes in the soil to allow air, water and nutrients to get into the grass roots, helping them to grow deeply, and produce a much stronger lawn. It also helps to relieve compaction from the soil, which stops nutrients and air from circulating. But how do you aerate your lawn?

Before you start to aerate your lawn, it’s a good idea to scarify it first to get rid of any moss, dead grass and thatch. This involves vigorously raking your lawn to get all the organic matter up, then transferring it to your compost heap or disposing of it. Light scarification is best in the spring but you can heavily scarify it in the autumn.

If you’ve got a small lawn, you can use a hand-held hollow tine aerator or even a normal garden fork. Dig deep into your lawn’s surface with the fork, or push the aerator into the ground which will pull plugs, or cores, of soil out of the ground to create air holes. You can let the cores dry and then go over them with a lawn mower or rake to spread them evenly across your lawn. This will recycle all the nutrients in those parts of the soil and stimulate bacterial activity to break down unwanted thatch. Don’t leave them, because they will make your lawn look bumpy over time.

If you’ve got a larger lawn, you might find it easier to see if you can hire a petrol aerator. But there are also rolling aerators that have spikes on a cylinder and you just push along, or even aerator sandals that you can wear and just go to town on your grass!

Hard landscaping refers to structural elements like patios, pathways, paving and sheds, usually required for a complete garden overhaul. Soft landscaping means plants, grass and trees, this can usually be managed by a general gardener and requires little disruption.

Driveways usually sink because they haven’t been laid properly. They may not have been dug deep enough, or the installer might not have used the right materials. This will need to be corrected at the earliest opportunity, although in extreme cases, the driveway may need to be completly be relaid.

1. Unroll your two pieces of artificial grass, ensuring that the pile is running in the same direction. Fold over each piece by about 300m.
2. To get the perfect seam, cut at least 3 tufts back, ensuring that you don’t trim any grass blades.
3. Either remove the backing on your self-adhesive tape and unroll it down the centre of the join, or roll it out ensuring that the shiny side is down then fix at either end with adhesive.
4. Fold over the grass onto the tape and bring each piece together, ensuring there’s a 2-3mm gap at the seam.
5. Where the pile runs over the edge of the seam, fold over the artificial grass.
6. Apply a small amount of adhesive under the edge of the first section of grass with a mastic gun, then add some to the front edge to stick the second piece.
7. Bring the seam together, ensuring that you don’t get any grass blades stuck. Place a plank with some heavy objects on over the join to ensure that it dries securely.

Everyone wants their garden to feel luscious, spacious and welcoming. But if you’ve got a small garden, it might feel like there’s no way to stop it looking cramped and unappealing. Luckily, there are ways to make a small garden look bigger – and they don’t have to cost the earth. Plant high You can’t expand your garden outwards, but you can go upwards. Harness your neighbours’ walls and fences to plant climbers and trailing plants to add height to your garden. Hanging baskets are a great option too. By using all the space available to you, it creates the illusion that your garden is bigger than it really is. Remove bulky bushes Now you know to plant high, you might realise that there are some shrubs and bushes that need to go. Large bushes spread out and take up too much space, making it feel crowded. If you’ve got a bush for security reasons, consider replacing it with a fence and adding climbers or tall plants around it like we suggested. Create depth An easy way to make a small garden look bigger is to create depth with different textures. Around borders, plant fine-textured plants in the background with course, large-leafed plants in the foreground to give the impression of a deeper space. This is a great idea for shallow, sloping gardens. You can use vibrant colours in the front with a backdrop of green to draw the eyes back. Blend into the background Consider using similar colours, shapes and plants to blend into the view beyond your garden, so it blurs where the boundary of your garden is. If plants and trees creep over from your neighbours’ gardens, don’t trim them back – merge them with your own garden’s style. Stick with a few favourite plants Another mistake people make when trying to make a small garden look bigger is they plant too many different things. This makes your garden feel cluttered, so stick with seasonal combinations; a good rule of thumb is to have at least 3 different flowering species at any time.

With summer comes a lot of lawn challenges - from sod webworms, chinch bugs, nutsedge to drought stress, diseases and lots more. A lot of people find it hard to tell what’s happening to their lawn and probably assume it to be as a result of the summer stress and will definitely turn green again once the fall rolls in. This may be right in certain situations, but if you have fungi eating deep into your lawn, the green may not return. So, how exactly do you figure out if your lawn has diseases or pests? In this post, we’re going to provide you with a good insight into this to help you take the necessary treatment steps as soon as possible.

• Fungal structures. Fungi structures are not usually the easiest to spot as they vary in shape, colour and appearance. Fortunately, most fungi that appears on lawns will possess some type of structure which can be spotted when moisture is present. Once the night time dew sets in, you’ll be able to identify these strange growths in your lawn.
• Matted or Collapsed Areas. There is some sort of diseases that will make grass plant to wilt in little time. This, combined with fungi structures will make the grass look to have been matted in some areas.
• Discoloured or oily areas. Some areas are likely to show symptoms more than the others. While the unaffected turf may remain in its normal state, areas that are nearby may vary in colour due to the damage to the leaf tissue.
• Lesions or spots on leaves. Do you notice a certain damage pattern on the leaf blades of the grass plants? If yes, then your lawn is probably infected with a disease. Some of these spots may vary in size and colour.