03 March 2024 , 15:16
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With Spring just around the corner, it's time to get your gardening gloves on and step into the sunshine... If it ever comes out.
It's fair to say winter has been a miserable few months, with harsh gusts, freezing temperatures and life-threatening storms forcing Brits across the nation to stay inside. And while icy conditions are still expected to hit the UK, some gardening jobs cannot wait.
British horticulturist and TV presenter Monty Don says March is the perfect time to start rejigging your plants around and getting your garden ready for summer - including an essential lawn job.
Writing in his eponymously named blog MontyDon.com, the gardener says you should mow the grass this month - but warns 'do not cut it too short'. "Just give it a light trim for the rest of this month," he added. "This will encourage good root growth and, as a result, the grass will be a lot healthier and better able to resist summer drought."
Don added that the key to a good lawn is 'very well-drained soil'. This may require you to 'stick a fork in the ground and wiggle it about' to loosen up matted roots. You should repeat this process for every six inches of lawn.
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Then, the expert recommends mixing up equal portions of sieved topsoil, sharp sand and sieved leaf mould or compost and spreading it across the area you have picked with a 'stiff broom'. If you have neither of these, sharp or silver sand should suffice.
"It is also worth giving the lawn a good scratch with a wire rake," Don added. "This will get at all the overwintering thatch and moss, and let light and water get to the soil and to the roots of the grass. Put the debris on the compost and then mow. It will look a little bald for a week or so but will grow back thicker than ever."