Scarifying in Connah's Quay
Under a tired lawn there is usually a mat of dead grass and moss sitting between the green and the soil. Rain lands on it and runs straight off, feed sits on top of it, and the grass roots into the mat instead of into the ground.
Best timeAutumn, or mid spring
A scarifier runs vertical blades down through that mat and drags it out. I take the lawn short first so the blades can reach, go over it one way and then across it, and bag up what comes off. What is left looks thin and brown and torn about, because it is.
That is the part nobody is ready for. A scarified lawn looks worse the day I leave than it did when I arrived, and stays that way for a fortnight. Then the grass fills back in from the roots with nothing in its way, and by the end of the month it is thicker than it started.
Timing is most of the job. The grass has to be growing hard enough to recover, which means September, or April once the ground has warmed up. Scarify in July and it goes brown and sulks; do it in December and nothing grows back at all.
Thank you so much, we absolutely love it! And thank you for being so patient with my indecisive OCD.
Questions people ask
- Why does the lawn look wrecked afterwards?
- Because the blades have just pulled the dead layer out of it, and some live grass comes with it. That is the job working, not the job going wrong. Give it two to four weeks in a growing month and it comes back thicker.
- How often does a lawn need doing?
- Most lawns are fine every couple of years. One that is mossy, shaded or never fed might want it annually. A lawn with no thatch in it does not need scarifying at all, and doing it anyway just sets it back.
- Can you do it in the summer?
- I would rather not. A lawn torn open in July has heat and drought to deal with before it can recover, and it often does not. September is the best month of the year for it.
- What should I do afterwards?
- Keep it watered if the weather turns dry, and leave the mower off it until the new growth is up. It is also the best chance you will get to overseed, while there is bare soil for the seed to land on.