The photograph above is not a pretty sight is it. Apart from choosing a wrong lawn type and likely wrong brand of turf for this particular yard, we can see that this new lawn is absolutely filled with weeds. Which of course so often brings us back to that old question of whether the new lawn came from the turf farm filled with weeds? To which the answer is of course no, and the lawn owner here would know that herself, because before this new lawn went down, this entire area was filled with weeds. Weeds of all types and shapes and kinds, it was a weedy oasis.
The lawn in question was the final piece of a complete garden overhaul for this home, with new fences, new garden beds and plants, new pathways, and of course the new lawn.
However, as these things so often go, a busy homeowner will call on a number of different contractors to come in to complete different parts of a garden overhaul, each one in their order, and nothing out of the ordinary about that at all.
And once the landscaper comes in to do his part of the work, to bring the gardens to life with new soils and mulches and plants of all kinds, and when he flattens out the old top layer of soil for where the new lawn is to be installed, he made one critical mistake, a mistake which will haunt this homeowner for a long time.
As we can tell by the weed infestation of the new turf, the contractor did not properly eradicate all weeds prior to the new lawn being installed. This may have been a decision of either the homeowner or the landscaper, it doesn’t matter at this stage, because now we have a brand new lawn filled with weeds.
One might suggest that what happened here was the complete gardening part of this yard overhaul was all done in one go. One part of the garden done, then to the next, then the next until all is completed with the lawn installation last of all.
And without all the weeds from the old yard killed off first, we now face the dilemma of this new lawn being filled with weeds right from the get-go.
So what would have been the better approach in this situation?
A Better Approach To Installing A New Lawn
What should have been done in this particular situation is that seeing the old area was completely overcome with so many weeds and weed types, that these weeds should have been killed off permanently before the new lawn went down.
This would mean proceeding as usual with all other aspects of the garden overhaul, including levelling out the new lawn area.
The new lawn area should then have been sprayed with a broad spectrum weed killer and left alone for at least a couple of months. During those two or even three months the lawn area should have been checked again for any signs of new weed growth coming through due to pre-existing weed seeds already remaining in the soil.
Each month the new lawn area should have been checked and sprayed again if required.
Even better, would have been if the bare soil, after the original weeds were removed had been fertilised and watered regularly so as to encourage as much weed growth as possible from those pre-existing weeds seeds still in the soil, and this would have killed off the vast and overwhelming majority of all weed seeds present in the soil, as they would have beens sprayed each time they emerged afresh.
This would have resulted in an almost completely weed free new lawn for the homeowner.
At the end of the final weed spraying, the bare soil should have been left and watered well for maybe another month to dilute any remaining residual weed spray still hanging around, though in reality this would be barely negligible anyway.
And then finally the new lawn would be installed in fresh and weed free soil.
I myself left my own new lawn area bare for at least two months as it was previous overrun with Oxalis weed. After clearing and spraying the weeds, I fertilised and watered the bare soil to encourage as much weed growth as possible, and killed every weed that emerged, and I’ve had a weed free lawn for many years since.
it was watered and fertilised to germinate any remaining weed seeds
then those new weeds were removed by hand - before the new lawn was planted
Time To Take Things A Little Bit Slower
This is in no way being critical of either the homeowner or contractor. You’re busy, he’s busy, you’re rushed and he’s rushed, we all have so much to do so often that we all just need to get things done fast most of the time. It’s fully understandable in this modern hectic world in which we live.
This is but simple advice for anyone who may be facing a similar situation, whereby we want to turn a jungle of weeds into a lush new green lawn, and of course for those who have the time and patience to take things a little more slowly.
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