Best Grass Lawn Seed for UK Gardens

What is the Best Grass Seed for Your Needs?

As you can see from the list above, there are any number of grass seed options. The final choice that you make will depend on the following:

• The UK weather - it does depend on exactly where you live in the United Kingdom, but generally speaking most residents in the UK will get the four seasons at some stage of the year. That means your grass needs to be able to deal with frost, snow, a lot of rain and warm sunshine in the late Spring and early Summer
• Grass Quality - most grass seed is basically general grass seed, and is almost always a mixture of seed types that allows you to have healthy grass and still be fairly hard wearing. - However, if you are looking for a high quality lawn, one that has limited foot fall, then you will have to buy a more expensive seed, but then be prepared to look after it
• Grass Thickness - We are often asked how tightly you should sow seeds, and in all honesty, it truly does depend on what type of finish you want to have on your lawn. The closer you sow the seeds, the thicker the grass will be. It will look better but will also need to be cut more.
• Grass Cutting - Unless you lay artificial turf, you are going to have to cut your grass a few times every year, and especially in the late Spring and Summer (March through to October) The faster growing grasses could mean a 1-2 week cut, whereas the slightly slower growing seeds, will mean a cut every 2-3 weeks.
• New Lawns vs Lawn Repair - Some grass seeds are better for new lawns, and other grass seeds are better for doing repairs also known as re-seeding

How Much Grass Seed do you Need?

For anyone new to sowing grass seed, this is usually the first question that they have. The simplest way of doing this is to measure the area where you are going to spread the seeds. You really only need a rough guideline for this.

The simplest way is to just pace out the size of your garden. The average step length in the UK is 75 cm (varies with height)

So for example, if you paced out your garden and it was 12 paces by 10 paces, then the length of your garden would be (12 x 75) and the width would be (10 x 75) which is 900 cm by 750 cm.

Divide these two numbers by 100 to convert the cm into metres, and in this case it would be 9 metres by 7.5 metres. Multiply those together and you get 67.5 square metres. That is the area of your garden.

Most grass seed will have a coverage amount on the box, and this is always quoted in square metres. You then simply need to buy the right amount to cover the area that you need.

How Close Should You Sow Grass Seed?

This is almost always the second question that people ask, when sowing a new lawn. By this stage you should have picked your grass seed, and calculated the size of your garden. There will always be clear instructions with your grass seed as to how much you should use.

If you spread too thin, you will end up with patch grass which is never a good look. If it is sown too thickly, then the grass can look quite bunched up, and is a real pain to cut afterwards.

The general rules are as follows

• For a new lawn sow at 50 grams per square metre
• When over seeding (repairing) an existing lawn, we recommend sowing at 35 grams per square metre

The majority of people will simply sow by hand, and this in our opinion, is as good a way as any to do it. If you have larger lawns, or you want to be very accurate, you can buy a handheld spreader. These do ensure a very consistent distribution of seeds across your new lawn.

These cost around £20 for a good quality model, and they do take the guess work out of sowing grass.

When Should You Sow Grass Seed in the UK?

The times when you can sow grass in the UK is from April through to September. For proper germination to happen, the soil temperature needs to be at least 8-10 degrees. The temperature needs to stay there as well, so something like a sudden burst of frost, will kill off any chance that you have.

We highly recommend checking the weather forecast to find a 2 week period, where there is no forecast of frost, and temperatures of around 10 degrees Celsius. That will give your seeds the best growing chance, and also ensure that you have a healthy lawn.

We don't get a great deal of hot weather in the UK, but we do get spells of it. If you sow during one of those spells, then be sure to water your soil well both before and after sowing so that your seedlings do not dry out.

Soil Preparation for Grass Seed

You will hear many complaints about grass not growing, or grass looking straggled and patchy. In almost every case that we have ever looked at, the main problem for that is the lack of soil preparation. In all honesty, most people get this wrong. We really can't stress enough how very important soil preparation is.

Build your home on a dodgy foundation and it will fall down. Sow your grass seeds on poor soil, and it will look awful.

The Perfect Seed Bed

You really need to focus on three steps (and yes these take time and patience)

1. Make sure there are no weeds, stones or any type of debris in your seed bed - this requires a lot of digging and weed removal and usually needs done a few times
2. Drainage - a good lawn needs to have good drainage, otherwise water will lay on the seed bed, and that creates moss and encourages the growth of weeds
3. Level - where possible, try to keep you lawn as level as possible. that will make your lawn much easier to cut.

Figure Out Your Soil Type

The soil, or more importantly the quality of your soil, will play a very important role in the quality of your lawn. Soil types vary quite a lot in the UK. Very few homes have the perfect soil for growing grass or anything else for that matter.

Soil can range from being sandy to sticky clay. In almost every case you are better off buying top soil, as that will give your lawn the best growing conditions. (Top soils come in different grades and we recommend buying the best grade that you can afford)

Your local garden centre or a quarry is your best bet, and all you need is to know the size of your garden.

If you don't want to spend money on topsoil, then you will need to do a lot of digging, and forking to try and get it as good as you can get it.

Get Rid of All Weeds

Weeds will grow on just about anything including stones, driveways and in your lawn. When preparing your seed bed for grass you need to try and get rid of them all. We recommend using a treatment that will kill moss, control weeds and will help make your lawn green.

Once you have dug your seed bed, raked it and removed stones and any visible weeds, then spread a product like EverGreen Complete 4-in-1 Lawn Care, Lawn Food, Weed and Moss Killer. These take about 2 weeks to work, but it is worth the wait.

Drainage

If you have no drainage or poor drainage, then water will lie on your lawn. This is a very common problem, and one that is hard to fix. Poor drainage will almost guarantee various types of grass disease, heavy growths of moss and other weeds like daisies, buttercups and dandelions. It also encourages light green and yellow grass.

The best way to ensure draining is to scarify an existing lawn, or with a new lawn, to make sure that it has good drainage at the beginning. You can do this by pushing a fork down into the lawn and allow air in to help the grass breathe. (known as aerating)

There are other tools available to do this such as aerating sandals, hollow tine forks and mechanical aerators

As Level As You Can Get it

In the ideal world a completely level bed is the best option. This will make you lawn really stand out as it looks fantastic. Aside from that, a level bed avoids soil erosion. If your garden has a lot of lumps and bumps in your seed bed, it stops the seed from growing the way it should.

The seed can simply fall off the side of lumps and that will create bald patches appear.

Having any types of lumps and bumps also allow rainfall to gather in very small puddles and that will increase the risk of moss.

Where possible you should rotovate the soil. This helps break up the soil and it can then be raked to being as level as you can get it. When done properly, you should have a seed bed that has a nice level consistency of fine crumbling soil to work with. That does take time and patience, but worth the effort.