Indigenous Nursery News Blog

A good garden design will see your indigenous garden looking beautiful through all the seasons.

But our lawns often suffer and don’t look their best by the end of a long, cold, dry winter.  I have had many customers at Random Harvest Indigenous Nursery asking for spring gardening advice, particularly on how to achieve a healthy, beautiful and lush green lawn in time for summer.

Here are seven steps to a beautiful lawn:

On the Highveld, mid-August through September is a good time to nurture your lawn.

1. Cut the grass on the lawnmower’s lowest setting possible, but make sure that you don’t damage the ground. This will probably be about a centimetre or so above the soil level.
2. Scarify (the process of scratching the surface of the lawn) with a leaf rake. This takes all the thatch (debris and dead grass) from winter off to allow strong new growth through. This is important to encourage rooting as well as more vertical growth (grass blades) rather than too much horizontal growth (runners).
3. Water and Aerate the soil. This will soften the soil for roots to penetrate and absorb nutrients. It will also encourage more nutrients from the compost and fertiliser to soak into the soil. Spike the lawn to make small holes in the ground. This aerates the soil, which promotes strong root growth of the lawn grass. Water first, to soften the ground for the spikes, so that you can create bigger holes in the ground with your spike roller.  Most people don’t have their own spike roller. You can hire one from a tool hire shop at a reasonable cost.
4. Regular fertilising will enhance the lawn's health. Broadcast an organic fertilizer with a high nitrogen content (slow release 5:1:5), then apply lawn dressing or compost in a thin layer over the lawn. Random Harvest’s organic, home-grown compost works very well for this.  You can use the leaf rake again to help spread it out roughly before the next step.
5. Turn the metal rake onto its straight, flat upper side or use a straight edge and scrape over the lawn to fill dents and dips in the lawn surface. This is to spread the compost / lawn dressing (I personally only use Random Harvest Nursery's compost) out evenly over the lawn surface and fill the holes made by the spike roller. For really deep dents or dips, mix a 50/50 mix of river sand and fine lawn dressing. The river sand will fill the dips and the lawn dressing provides good growing medium for the grass to spread over. It is very important to pull the compost off of the lawn so that you don’t smother the growing tip of the lawn which is at ground level.  The tips of the grass blades must be just peeping through the compost.
6. If using our compost, scrape all the larger, left over bits together and put them in your flower beds. Water lightly to help the compost sink into the lawn and release its nutrients more easily. Do not over water, especially in August, as at this time of year the ground can stay waterlogged for too long.

Let it grow!

If this all sounds like too much hard work, contact Random Harvest Nursery's office on 082 553 0598 and we'll recommend someone who can see to all of this for you.