How your lawn can make a favourable impression

the overall effect.

Gardens with excellent flower /shrub borders can be spoiled if the

grass is not up to standard. Many gardeners hope for a beautiful stretch

of green velvet, yet seem to imagine that it will develop by itself

provided they keep it cut.

In practice it will take as much attention per square yard as any

well-planted border.

To produce a good lawn there is much to do in the spring, and

March/April is a good time for action. This year in particular many

lawns have suffered through excess wet during the winter.

The mild, wet conditions have allowed not only the grass to keep

growing, but weeds and in particular moss and lichen have romped away as

well. If these are considered a problem, now is the time to act.

It might be, however, that moss is not a problem. I know of one

much-admired garden in which the beautiful lawn setting off the

colourful borders had no grass at all -- only moss, which needed almost

no cutting. It had virtually no wear on it as the two elderly ladies who

lived there only occasionally walked across it.

But for most of us moss is a nuisance, a symptom of a problem rather

than the problem itself. It develops as a result of waterlogging of the

soil (so drowning the roots of the grass); over-compaction of the soil

(again preventing good root action); starvation of the grass; and too

much shade.

Each point indicates a situation where the grass will not grow well

but in which moss thrives. The first is the major cause for excess moss

this spring, and possibly the most difficult to eradicate.

It is virtually pointless to install land drains in an urban situation

as there is usually no adequate outlet for the water. If soakaways could

take the water the lawn would probably not need the drains in the first

place.

However spiking, followed by top dressings of a sand and peat mixture,

will help surface moisture to penetrate to deeper levels more quickly

and so dry the surface where the roots of the grass grows.

This treatment will also relieve the second problem.

Grass starvation is caused over the years by regular removal from the

lawn of grass as clippings, while insufficient is fed back. There are

many suitable spring lawn fertilisers on the market, and one that

contains a weed killer should be chosen.

Make sure it is applied evenly because an overdose will cause burning

while missed patches will stand out yellow.

Shading may be eased by judicious pruning of overhanging trees or

shrubs, or suitable grasses can be added that will tolerate shaded

conditions. Where existing grass is thin following the removal of the

moss, scarify the surface, and sow seed of shade-tolerant lawn grasses.

Each seed company offers its own shade mixture. To aid distribution

you might first mix the seed with sand.

A fine lawn is rewarding -- but not a labour-saving feature in the

garden.

* James May is gardening instructor at the National Trust for

Scotland's Greenbank Gardens at Clarkston, Glasgow.