Lawn Repair and Renovation - The Autumn Review and Results!
We love autumn lawn renovations - but they are very hard work! What makes it all worthwhile is the customer feedback and the results we see across the following winter and spring months. This article is going to show you some amazing before and after photos from what we have been up to!
What is a Lawn Renovation?
To us, a lawn renovation is made up of a minimum of scarification (powered lawn dethatching), aeration (mechanical spiking) and overseeding. This is often required if:
- If total grass coverage is not adequate, if this be due to bare patches, moss or thatch or a combination
- A lawn has excessive thatch, impacting the health and quality of the lawn. It’s likely it hasn’t been scarified for a number of years, or not aggressively enough
- We want to change the grass type in the lawn
Additional factors could include soil compaction, grub activity and the frequency of disease.
When is the best time to carry out Overseeding, or Lawn Repair and Restoration Work?
Grass seed needs warmth, water (and air) in order to germinate.
If the soil temperature is below 5c it will not germinate. If it is between 5 and 10c, we’re asking a lot of it to come through quickly and lush as we would want. This renders intensive lawn renovation less effective through the winter months.
Grass also needs water to germinate. April to July are often our driest months of the year and also provide us with most of our longest days. The potential for a warm spell which doesn’t suit the grass is very likely.
With this in mind, this is why mid-August until early October is the sweet spot for lawn restoration work – just before the mild and wet conditions of autumn.
We quite enjoy dry conditions to carry out the work in safe in the knowledge autumn rain is on the way.
Autumn Renovations 2022 - The Results!
We carried out more than 100 separate lawn repair and renovation calls this autumn alone, with many more visited for less intensive work. It was our biggest autumn renovation season in our history with some big lawns in there too! Here are some before, during and after images that we’ve been able to capture since.
Sutton Coldfield Lawn Restoration
This rear lawn in Sutton Coldfield had some additional complexities! It was made up of a thick thatch layer, and uneven surface and contained a lot of horsetail. We killed off the lawn a few weeks before the restoration work with specialist products to target the horsetail before removing thatch, filling in the two dipping channels with top dressing before seeding and using the remaining top dressing.
With such extensive work carried out in September and us starting from afresh, to have gained this covering of grass in only 3-4 weeks was good going! We last saw this lawn in October and will be again in the coming days where it will have had it's first cut or two and be coming together nicely!
Nuneaton Lawn Renovation
This rear lawn in Nuneaton was slow to recover from the drought due to the thatch layer blocking water and nutrient from reaching the soil. For a medium sized lawn there was an epic level of debris as expected from the scarification. As the lawn was so thick in the first place and had had 12 months of lawn treatments from us anyway, it was one of those which looked better following the work! It's another that we'll revisit really soon.
Tamworth Lawn Repair and Renovation
This small front lawn was another super thatchy lawn! You can see that despite the lawn across the road re-greening quickly from the drought, this one was already in a poor shape (and was booked in) long before the weather got tough. It was very weedy to start with and rather than attempt a May renovation (dodged a bullet there!) we addressed the weeds, improved the lawn for the summer and hit it hard in September.
You can see the strength of the grass coming through just 2-3 weeks later, and how the lawn was starting to come together 6 weeks following the scarification, aeration and overseeding work. This lawn will be at it's very best come early-spring.
Walsall Large Lawn Renovation
This one spanned a day and a half! This was another lawn with a thick thatch layer, with a lot of moss, bare patches and a compacted soil - and this was again before the drought conditions had kicked in. It required the running of the scarifier within the video below consistently on day 1 with all this thatch preventing the lawn from thriving. Without this work the lawn would have remained thin - the couple of fertiliser applications had taken this lawn as far as they could.
With the main work in late September, this was was another which was still coming together when we saw it a few weeks ago, but with the mild and wet November, combined with a complementary fertiliser application it will be in even better shape now than within this final image. By spring we're sure that this large Walsall lawn restoration will be one of our best.
7 Reasons Why are Kingsbury Lawn Care are Leading Lawn Renovators
Our lawn repair and renovation / lawn restoration service is different to more basic scarification and aeration because:
- All renovation calls are headed by an experienced lawn technician
- Our scarification is made up of multiple passes, ridding the lawn of as much thatch as possible
- We clear all debris from the lawn thoroughly, so the lawn is in it’s best position for overseeding
- We complete two passes with the aerator with industry leading machinery
- Overseeding is completed with the latest professional seed mixes, to suit the needs of the lawn. It’s not one-size fits all
- We then schedule two seed-check calls which also includes a complementary autumn granular fertiliser to get the best from the new seed and quickly as possible
- For all autumn renovations, we 100% guarantee the seed germination. We back our team and process so that it’s 100% no risk on you – even if you don’t water the lawn! We could not guarantee this without total trust in our people and process.
Yes, this is often more expensive that the other services in our area, but we believe we provide the only lawn restoration service in the area of this quality and assurance.
In many cases we only carry this level of work out on our lawns once, rather than it being an annual service. We recommend that one of our lawn renovations is carried out every 1-4 years dependent on grass type, drought or grub damage, and ultimately, what you wish to achieve with your lawn.
This short video was filmed at the end of August on a rear lawn near Solihull. It shows the quality and power of our professional scarification machinery in action.
Are Lawn Treatments required before a Lawn Renovation?
In the majority of cases, it’s a strong yes. A prior treatment (or even two) gives us the opportunity to strengthen the healthy grass that we have to work with, along with controlling both weeds and moss. Following overseeding some products cannot be applied for weeks after the work – our tip is to deal with what we can as soon as possible as we can’t sow grass and control weeds at the same time.
Lawns which have a treatment first improve faster following a Lawn Renovation in almost all instances.
Could Kingsbury Lawn Care work some Lawn Renovation Magic this Spring?
Only if you are quick this winter! Spring in the West Midlands along with much of the country is short lived. Winter can drag its feet into March and April, and dry summer conditions are often with us by May. This gives us limited Lawn Restoration opportunity, but spring can be better suited to less intensive scarification and standalone aeration calls. For lawn renovations such as those above, daily watering is required when away from our preferred autumn window.
We have to plan seed and machinery well in advance, so be sure to contact us as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
Book in your first treatment and we will include a complementary lawn survey (worth £97) when we can assess your lawns with you in-person the best course of action.