Growing Grass On Clay Soil Uk

Drain slowly after rain.

Growing grass on clay soil uk.

Even though clay soil isn t good for growing grass you can set up a covetable lawn on this soil if you prepare it well. Rhs garden hyde hall has a heavy clay soil but the low rainfall in essex makes handling this soil very much easier than in devon. Where to see clay soils. It can take up to two months of preparing the soil before you can actually plant your grass.

Plant warm season grasses as plugs from. This can be done with a tiller an herbicide or by hand weeding. There are very few air pockets under the soil surface and grass. An unamended clay soil will never grow a good lawn as grass roots suffocate in the airless environment drowning when the clay is wet and baking when it s dry.

A good way to determine the soil s moisture content is by sticking a screwdriver into the soil to a depth. Clay is only ever at a good moisture level for a very short time between being an airless wet mud and dry and hard as a brick. That s because it is extremely heavy and thick. Grass grown in clay soil requires less frequent watering than lawns grown on sandy soil.

Grass is not a strong competitor against many weeds so getting the roots out is critical. Gardening with clay soil. Clay consists of very fine particles that tend to bind tightly together creating a heavy dense compacted soil. However clay soil is perhaps the most difficult to work with.

Follow some basic steps to make grass grow in red clay soil and establish a lawn that is the envy of the neighborhood. Clay soil is made up of tons of small particles that stick together clinging to moisture. Most grass seed will grow in various soil types. Once you re sure that your soil is good and healthy consider adding some earthworms to help keep your topsoil nice and loose.

The grass roots will work to break up and loosen the clay soil below. A bone dry clay soil is going to be rock hard and not allow water nutrients to get into the rootzone when the temperature start to get cooler but before the leaves start dropping start by aerating your lawn followed by an over seeding of appropriate seed type and apply an organic fertilizer. Clay soil usually does not drain well which is a problem for grasses that do not do well with their roots in water saturated soil and grass roots can have a difficult. Heavy to dig and cultivate.

Clay soil is not the ideal medium in which to grow turf grass. Step 1 remove all the existing weeds and grass from the area to be seeded. Varieties that grow in a clay loam soil include annual ryegrass colonial bent grass hard fescue kentucky bluegrass perennial ryegrass and red fescue.