Hot Tips for Cold Weather turf laying

“All the best lawns get laid in winter” – one of our favourite headlines.

But can it be true?  In fact, winter can be a really good time to lay a new lawn.  The workload can be spread over 2 or 3 days as the turf won’t dry out sitting in blazing sunshine.  Weeds don’t germinate over winter so you have a much better chance of getting the lawn really well established. The best part is less work watering although see point 3 below.

Here we will share our Hot Tips for Cold Weather turf laying:

1. Absolutely vital – make sure you have boards ready before you start. Ideally two boards about 2.5 metres long and 400mm wide. You don’t need anything expensive.  Boards will ensure that your weight is evenly distributed when rolling out the turf.  They can also help to keep the rolls running straight.
2. Have a nice dry crust to lay the turves on. Our Rootzone is specially formulated with just the right amount of sand and topsoil mixed to help you achieve the perfect top layer.  Of course, it should be as level as possible.  You don’t want to be mowing over bumps and dips come Spring.
3. This tip might seem a bit superfluous when the rain is lashing against the window after a hard day’s lawn laying but your newly laid lawn still needs to be watered daily to a level of about 60mm for 2 – 3 weeks until the root systems are established. When rain is falling, as it frequently does over winter, you might not need to water so often but we’d suggest buying a Rain Gauge to make sure that the turf is actually getting all the water it needs.
4. Apply a top-quality fertiliser every 5 – 6 weeks except when frosty or snowing. Our Autumn / Winter fertiliser is the right balance of ingredients and is what we use ourselves on the farm.  You can buy it here.
5. Stay off the newly laid lawn as much as possible over winter
6. Don’t worry about a hard frost. A hard frost acts like a deep freeze for grass.  It’ll just sit dormant till ‘defrosted’ and then start growing again.

Bonus – you’ll be first out with the BBQ come Spring showing off a luscious green lawn.

Still in doubt?  Remember the winter months are when Golf Courses are hard at work laying turf for green courses come Spring.

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