General Gardening

Re: Advice on winter mowing please experts

miranda — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:21:48 GMT

I believe you called it rakeology, digger, and I called it rakie. Yes the results were pretty good, especially when frosted, so the patterns showed up well.

Re: Advice on winter mowing please experts

Digger — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:02:45 GMT

Ahh yes rakeology or is it rakeography, either way it produced good results

Re: Advice on winter mowing please experts

miranda — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:50:08 GMT

'Spot on re Coupland'

Ha, thought so. Me too.

Actually, I've never lived anywhere warm enough that the grass grows all year round. At my old garden, when the grass was needing cutting at the end of winter, but it was still too wet to do it, I raked the lawn into a spiral shape and it looked quite nice. In another area I raked it into squares, like a chess board.

Re: Advice on winter mowing please experts

Phot's-Moll — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:39:57 GMT

If my grass looks like it needs cutting and isn't frozen or waterlogged then I cut it. Usually I only do it once per month in December, January and February. I'm no expert on lawns though!

Re: Advice on winter mowing please experts

helojed — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:23:30 GMT

Spot on re Coupland. Many thanks on that. Luckily managed to do the mowing a day before thefrost hit - pure conincidence. I guess it is the difference between commercial and domestic gardening. Enjoying Level 2 - when I get to it that is!

Re: Advice on winter mowing please experts

miranda — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:37:12 GMT

Hello helojed (got to ask if you're a Douglas Coupland fan),

Personally, I'd try to avoid walking on lawns when they're frozen, but if it means your job, well I guess it's their lawn. If they wanted, then you could fill in the gaps round the edges with a mix of sand and compost - the seed wouldn't germinate at the moment and would just be eaten by hungry wildlife, so there's no point in sowing any.

Maybe someone else will suggest jobs you could do in the middle of winter, but I can't really think of any myself.

Hope you're enjoying the Level 2 - loved every minute of the course I did!

Advice on winter mowing please experts

helojed — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:28:18 GMT

Im currently doing my RHS Level 2, but aside from that have a few small gardening work jobs every week. One is for a property company, who have asked me (and I have done) a quick mow on the main lawn to tidy it up - luckily before the snow came!

My question I suppose is this - I put the mower on a high setting, and had previously given it an autumn feed a while ago, but is there anything else I should be thinking about when the commercial demands I mow when I would ordinarily not??

I was aghast at first, but the result is fine, but the lawn iteself is blimin awful - laid I think by blind mice or something, so I have been very slowly trying to bring it to health. I think it's only been down a year at most and some areas seem barely knitted into the soil around the edges.