Confessions of a Clumsy Scot

So the lawn itself was Deans project for the summer. I’ve never seen someone with such a hatred of dandelions or moss. Which living on the Isle of Skye means thats basically what our lawns are made up of.

Back in April when we did the first grass cut of the year, we borrowed my Dads scarifier and spent two days basically digging up the whole front graden. We let that rest for about a week while we waited for grass seed to arrive.
Once the grass seed did arrive we let it pre-germinate in little mesh bags in a bucket for two days before removing them and letting them dry out. This just sped up the process of the grass seeds rooting.
The first attempt at spreading the grass was by hand and basically just walking around for hours sprinkling handfuls of grass seed.
The seed did take but took about three weeks to just show. We also had a bit of a heatwave so keeping them damp was an issue as well as birds having a good meal.

We ordered more grass seed and after some research we bought some compost and top soil. After pre germinating the seed again we mixed the compost, top soil with the grass seed before sprinkling.
This process worked a lot better because it gave the seed more protection from the birds, but also kept the seed damp letting it root better so we got a lot more coverage out of this.
The next time we sowed some grass seed was just to cover some patches. And to be fair, the front lawn now does look like a golfing green.
I do think this might have to be a yearly project though with the moss growth on the Island, simply because of the acidicity of the ground here.

The back garden was a bit of a different task. I just wanted grass.
I didnt care what was there as long as it was green as during the winter, the garden turns into a swamp and the dogs churn the ground up and turn it into a race track.
Theres one little patch in particular that gets very soggy with heavy rain. This is where a rosebush used to be which we dug up to move as Macey kept hurling herself into as a puppy. So what we do with this patch will be a work in progress but I’m hopeful that having some grass will help with some water absorbtion.

For the most part its now actually green everywhere, just the odd little patch that didn’t take where it’s very much in the shade and gets little sun light or even rainfall. But now that Mac is older and the dogs don’t chase each other round the garden anymore, I think this will actually just grow back in due course.
The real test will be come the winter and see how much of it survives. If it doesn’t, next years plan will be just to overseed the shit out of it and fence sections off so it’s totally undisturbed by the dogs running on it.

My biggest issue with having done this is the grass seed getting everywhere round the patio and gravel round the back. I. Hate. Weeds.
I started pulling weeds as they grew but I couldn’t keep up, so I decided to leave it until we had finished all the grass seeding for the year so more seed wouldn’t just start growing.
At the end of last year we put new kerbing round the lawn and there is one patch beside it that is all gravel, and embarrassingly I left it because I was so overwhelmed with the weeds but now it’s time to do something about it before summer is over totally!

I started digging up all the gravel sections. Pulling out all the weeds and grass before sifting and cleaning the stones. Chucked the stones in the wheelbarrow and then starting laying down a membrane to stop the weeds growing so much.
I started this section and admittedly it took me about three hours, so I really need to figure a more efficient way without turning the patio into a total mud bath. But I’m already much happier with the outcome, I just think It’s going to be a slow process only being able to do this on weekends and evenings while trying to midge clouds.

Stay tuned for the progress though!