Sowing a lawn from seed is the best way to ensure that you have a lawn that is perfectly suited to the conditions in your garden. But more often than not, you can scatter grass seed and the birds eat it. Head gardener at Sissinghurst Castle Garden Troy Scott Smith explains how to protect your newly sown grass seed from the birds.
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Watch Troy Scott Smith explain how to protect grass seed from the birds
Fixing bare patches on your lawn
Work on grass areas is essential in autumn to relieve compaction and repair worn or bare areas. We remove the build-up of thatch (dead grass that lies in the sward) using a scarifier (on a smaller scale, a metal-tined rake does just as well). We then improve surface aeration and drainage using a mechanical spiker fitted with hollow tines, which pulls out and collects cores of soil. We fill the resulting holes by brushing in a top dressing of sharp sand or old potting compost.
On bare areas, we mix grass seed in with top dressing to oversow. We use a hollow roller with a mesh skin that evenly distributes the top dressing and seed mix over the lawn.
One trick I’ve learned is to pre-germinate the grass seed by mixing it with the top dressing a week or so before broadcasting. This ensures that the lawn greens up more quickly, and fortunately the pigeons don’t seem to be interested in eating the germinated seed.
