If you are having landscaping work carried out on your garden in Surrey which involves laying new turf, you may be wondering when it’s best to carry out this part of the work on your outdoor space.
The general advice is that it’s best to lay garden turf either in the early autumn or in the spring. However, the truth is that you can lay garden turf at any time between autumn and spring provided the ground is not too waterlogged or frozen.
Why is autumn a good time to lay garden turf?
Autumn is the optimum time to lay garden turf because once it’s been set down, it won’t need mowing for a number of weeks, giving the grass plants time to properly bed in and strengthen.
What’s more, autumn is often a wet time of the year which means you won’t need to worry about watering your grass – nature will take care of that for you! So, if you lay turf during the autumn, you can be confident that it will not only bed in well, but also receive the water and nutrients it needs to thrive all year.
How do you prepare your garden for new turf?
If you have bare ground in your garden, you might be tempted to try laying the turf over the top without doing much work beforehand, however this would be a mistake.
It’s important to prepare the soil properly before you lay your turf to give it the best chance of thriving. This means you need to remove weeds, dig the soil to ensure there is no compaction and add compost to the soil to not only increase the nutrients but also to help it hold moisture.
That can be quite a lot of work that takes several days on its own, depending on the size of your lawn, so you may prefer to get some help with Surrey landscaping rather than do all the work yourself.
Ideally you need to leave the soil to rest for a few days before you come to lay the turf. At this point you want to compact the soil so that it’s ready to receive the turf.
How much turf do I need for my garden?
When you’re ordering your turf, you need to ensure you have enough to cover the whole area comfortably. Measure your lawn’s length and width to calculate its size in square metres. It’s advisable to add around five to ten per cent to that size when placing your turf order.
This allows for any wastage, which will be particularly relevant if the area you’re laying turf on has an irregular shape – or if you want your lawn to be laid in a specific shape to complement the rest of your landscaping.
As a general rule, one roll of turf covers one square metre, so you can use that as a guide when you’re working out how many rolls of turf you need to buy. It’s also important to speak to your landscaper when you’re ordering your turf so that it arrives at the right time.
Ideally, you need to lay the turf within a few days of it being delivered, otherwise there is a risk that the grass could die before it has a chance to establish itself in your garden.