Now that you have laid a brand new lawn, there is plenty to do to keep your lawn looking green and lush over the course of the year. Lawns typically take up a large part of garden design, and have a big visual impact which means it is pertinent to keep on top of regular maintenance. Here below is our guide to looking after your newly laid lawn to ensure it looks it best through the seasons;

1. One of the most important part of ensuring your lawns longevity is to water it regularly for the first few weeks. As with any new plant, water will allow the roots to bed into the soil below. If you have a sprinkler head, set a timer for every 30 minutes and move it around the lawn during the first few days. Then you want to water it a minimum of twice daily for the first two weeks at a minimum.

2. Your lawn will take around two weeks to bed down, so until then keep foot traffic off the lawn so you don’t damage it. At the end of this, your lawn will be ready for its first cut. Cutting the lawn helps to stimulate growth, similar to when you cut for example hedges, when you remove part of the plant, it stimulates new growth and encourages a healthy lawn.

3. First cut - we recommend you cut on a high blade - approx 1/3 of the length of the grass. You’ll want to leave the cuttings on the lawn on this first cut (no mower basket, this is optional as the cuttings will stay on the lawn until they either decompose or blow away.) This will act as a feed for the lawn. As the new turf is grown with a good fertiliser with high nutrients, as it breaks down it will act as an extra feed for the lawn.

4. Next is to keep up regular lawn maintenance, you’ll want to do regular cutting and watering to your lawn. Ideally cutting every week, if you leave it for longer than two weeks it will turn your lawn into a meadow.) If you have been away and the lawn has grown a little longer - you’ll want to cut it down in stages, take off just 1/3, leave it for a few days and then do another cut. If you do it in one go, you could shock the grass and cause it to die off. It is still important to do regular watering if your lawn, it will dry out and turn brown in hot weather and unless watered soon after it’s cut it is less likely to recover.

5. Ideally you would be laying a new lawn in early Spring - this is when there is more rainfall to help water the lawn on top of your manual watering. The lawn maintenance annual programme is the following;

Mid - March - first cut on a high setting after winter

April - start weekly cutting on your lawn

Beginning - June - summer lawn feed and and extra watering if there is a dry spell

End - August - end of summer feed, continue to cut and water if there is a dry spell

End - September/October - winter lawn feed and weed - this is to prepares the lawn and slows growth over the winter to allow the roots to establish over winter to protect it

November - move to fortnightly/monthly cuts of your lawn until December if it continues to grow.

Mid-November/March - restorative work on your lawn, which could include

• Relaying - use turf rolls to patch up bare patches

• Scarifying - this is the process or removing moss/thatch from the grass, typically in shady sections and to be followed by;

• Reseeding

HP Landscapes offer annual lawn maintenance care for your garden - please enquire at office@hplandscapes.com for more information