MAKING A LAWN

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 934, 29 March 1930, Page 28

MAKING A LAWN

It is impossible to have a beautiful garden without a satisfactory lawn. If it is bare or patchy, or if the grass i is thin, the whole garden suffers. The | first step to take before sowing the, seed is to see that the ground is perfectly clean and free from weeds. If you intend sowing a law'n in the spring, now is the time to dig over your ground and plant potatoes or peas, or any good crop, to clear the ground of weeds. Or the soil can be dug, limed, and levelled ready for sowing next season. Every week the hoe should be run over the top to kill surface weeds. This process should be kept up until the spring or autumn season comes, when the time will be ripe for sowing. Grass seed may be sown during the months of j September and October, or better still, j during March, April and May, when the seed has a beter chance to establish itself and take a firm hold ere the dry season sets in. Before the seed is sown the surface of the ground should be rolled, while immediately following sowing the seed should be raked in and the ground rolled again. Sow seed fairly thickly, and walk from east to west, and from north to south. Make sure the whole plot is evenly sown. The quantity of seed required may be found by ascertaining the area of the lawn in square yards —-41 bof seed should be ample to sow 10 yards by 10 yards (100 square yards). The best fertiliser for improving a lawn is blood and bone, or superphosphate, and apply at the rate of three ounces a square yard. An application of sulphate of ammonia often does much good, and helps to kill out annual weeds. Use this at the rate of an ounce a square yard. MO3S on lawns is sometimes troublesome; this is often found in shady positions where the land Is damp. In most cases drainage will be needed. If this is not the case, top-dress with lime in the autumn, and apply sulphate of ammonia in the spring, at the rate of a quarter ounce to the square yard. The patches should be topdressed with fresh soil, and new seed sown.