Emma-Louise

Hola,

Me and my garden again!

How do you lay turf? I want to reclaim some of the flower beds as grass as our garden is not a great size and we have too much soil areas...

There is a drop of about 2 inches between the grass and the flower beds, so I would have to build up some soil, before I lay the turf but where do I start?

Any particular type of soil?

Fredbargate

Green side up


Sorry

Mitzyboy

Any more of that an I will have to grass on you!

Emma-Louise

lynnxa

seriously though - I'm sure my dad once told me that turf is best laid in wet weather

Fred James

Whenever you lay it, it is going to need daily (or more) irrigation.

Emma-Louise

The garden has community sprinklers that come on every night, so watering would not be a problem...

VFR

Sounds like you will only need a little, as Turf comes supplied with roots & a little soil, so check just what your supplier will deliver.
Sharp sand will be fine as a base as you will not need much & the turf will appriciate the added drainage that this gives.

Emma-Louise

sand, of course didn't think of that, it doesn't have to be soil does it!

What do you mean by sharp sand?

Fredbargate

If you go to a builders supplier ( at least at mine ) you will see yellow sand and a very coarse almost pebbly sand dark in colour and generally inconsistent thats sharp sand or as near to it as you get in my part of Spain

Casa Santo Estevo

Fredthered

Your Father was absolutely Spot On ! Although it can actually be TOO wet, if you actually do it while raining, and leave you floudering around towards the end of the 'Lay' in a Sea of MUD !
The tip is : (in dry weather) well water the Soil/Sharp Sand Mixture before laying the turf, and once again afterwards.
(and this is for Turf Laying in Soggy Old England)
Imagine the importance then in Spain.

IMO : The Guy in the above video HASN'T well-raked his soil, so his Turf resembles the Alps !

Cheers and Good Luck
Fredthered

Dick Dasterdly

Mid-summer is not the ideal time even with regular watering.
There is a risk of it burning off before getting properly established, if the surface is left dry for an hour or two.
Best to wait two or three months.

Rambling Rose

Sounds like you have a system in place with the sprinklers to keep turf alive once it is established but it is getting it to that point that is the problem.

We had some turf layed when we moved here in October 2007. It grew nicely over the winter but all died the following summer. The builder had not put down enough earth underneath it and we didn't water it enough either. At that time we had a hose pipe ban so we were trying to do it with watering cans - impossible task. My gardening book says its better to water a lawn for 2 hours every few days rather than a few minutes every day. Apparently this encourages deeper roots which makes the lawn more resilient. However theres no chance of us ever doing this here.

I think to get your lawn well established you would need to water it twice a day to start with and try not to walk on it as much as possible.

We have now cut down our lawn area to parts that don't have to be walked on and paved the rest. I don't know how much turf costs where you are but we found that laying a few terracotta paving stones ourselves was no more expensive and much lower maintenance.

Good luck

Rose

superskib

Just remember that old Irish adage GREEN ON TOP