Hi,
I am a proud owner of a garden apartment. (living there 12 months)
My garden land is about 120 sq.m.

I am a newbie to gardening and grass-growing.
I only know how to cut the lawn with an electro-mower.

I see my grass get thinner and thinner each season.
I like to know how to get the lawn to be "VERY NICE" and neat.
I believe (don't flame me now) that Swiss people keep very good quality lawns. "Carpet" quality.

1. Airing the grass? What should I do/ buy? Manual or electric ventilator?
2. Cutting grass, method, frequency, height?
3. how to get rid of weeds (without chemical)
4. tips and tricks.

I appreicate any tips and tricks and specific places (not just Jumbo, Obi or COOP) to buy these special equipment, and prices.

Grass, just green green grass.

Thanks.

HAT

PS: When I am not watering my burnt hedges, I am cutting my damm grass. Then all the other neighbours bring out their mowers when they see me. Mowing is my weekly mental therapy.

2 simple tips to improve your grass,

FEED IT !!!!!! At least at the start of the summer and again at the end,
Don't cut it so often or too short,

These 2 steps will normally go a long way to improving any lawn which is starting to thin.

Also, when you've cut it, give it something to drink (in the evening, after the sun goes down), especially in this hot weather. If the grass is longish, the dew collected overnight will give it enough moisture to go on. If the grass is short, it dries out quickly.

You might also want to invest in simple sprinkler. Migros has them for about 40 francs. I find if you regularily water the lawn all summer long and only when the sun is off it, it grows quite nicely. We also use a fertiliser once a year.

The only result i see, are more flowery weeds....
Problem with German language is, i cannot even describe these weeds to the local LANDI shop (garden supplier) about the kind of weeds.
I used a CALITO brand Umkraut remover. (poison I think), but these damm weeds still appear.

Last night, I saw another neighbour (not that bad one), use a rake to rake up the dead cut grass. His garden lawn is very very lush and smooth, not to mention thick and "juicy". I think it is necessary to comb the grass or unpack their compressed dead soil?

Think I will ask him too. Of course I will ask him about restoring burnt Thuja hedges too. I am sure he will have a word about that.

HAT

Have this, done that.

Thanks!

Rake all the leaves/dead grass/lawn cuttings up and spike the lawn with your garden fork.

I would certainly resort to help of experts from Wimbledon they exactely know what to do....

Head out to the sticks and talk to a friendly farmer and buy a few of gallons of very well fermented cow s**t. Spray liberally all over the grass, ensuring plenty goes over into your neighbours garden.

It works very well on all the fields and grass round here, and is also a known cure for burnt hedges.

I've been on a mission with this recently to do the same. Our garden is seriously overgrown having been neglected for about a year.

If there is a lot of weeds and moss you need to get all that up and reseed. You will think you have killed the lawn, but new seed should start to show in 3 to 4 weeks.

I have done mine in 2 steps, first was a manual rake and overseed which worked ok, then I realised you need to hit bad patches hard and bought an electric scarifier/cultivator from Co-op Bau and Hobby Volketswil for a few hundred francs, went over the whole lot and then changed the rake attachment for the cultivator part and took the bad patches back to the bare earth and raked in more of the ultra tough grass.

It's starting to look ok now and the patches are disappearing. I definitely recommend you buy a decent spreader for grass seed and lawn sand /fertiliser. During attempt 1 I distributed the seed by hand and you can see where it has been seeded because the new grass is much tougher and grows much quicker than the original stuff.

I'm going to see how it goes until Autumn then do my next repair job.

Looking after roof Garden/Lawn

Hi, that was what I plan to do.

I was at OBI yesterday, bought a grass-trimmer.
I hesitated to buy the ventilator thing.

Would you be willing to exchange a six-pack for borrowing your machine for 1 weekend? I plan to buy my own, eventually but I am unsure which one to buy. I did not lean towards the cheapo ones in OBI.


My lawn is quite nice and flat actually. However, I want to make it PERFECT (did someone say Wimbleton?).
It is unfortunately however, drying up a little, esp 1 corner, only sand and stony.

Let me know please, perhaps next weekend if the weather is fine?

HAT

You should aerate your lawn an add more grass seed but only in the fall. If you do it now your new grasslings & your old grass and weeds will be competing.

Definitely borrow one if you can. We borrowed on from a work colleague. But I like my lawn the way it is. It's not the wimbledon kind but has lots of clover & little flowers! It's very pretty.

We do have some very serious and nasty weeds that bite! You have to dig them out with your little spade. The what i do is take a bit of grass from the edge and fill in the hole. The edge I will eventually cut around & make edged boxes are right now it runs into the gravel but doesn't have a smooth edge.*

You're more than welcome to borrow it, it's not exactly the sort of thing I use weekly.

It is basically a machine with two cylinder attachments, one is a rake attachment and one is a cultivator attachment (big metal arms). It's not a high end one but is probably better than the CMI one in OBi for 60 odd francs.

Hi
Do you remember the model and brand of this thingy?
I plan to visit Jumbo or Coop this Sat, maybe it helps if I know what you are talking about.

If I still don't buy it on Sat, then I will hop over to borrow yours next weekend.
Do you prefer beer or wine? Or you prefer some other barter items?

Sorry to sound "monetary", but I am glad you are willing to lend me without really know me.

HAT

It's a "Atika Elektrovertikutierer/-lüfter VT 32" article 7 on page 7 here.

I normally buy Bosch stuff but read some unfavourable reviews of the Bosch equivalent + it didn't have the cultivator attachment. I didn't want to spend a fortune on something that I only use twice a year.

No need to bring beer or wine, but a Ausweis to show me might be nice

Can I place my son with you, he is a nice child, good fun and talks nonstop. He is 4.
This way, I will not run away with the machine....

Looks nice. The one from CMI was 89chf (looked similar but surely less quality).
I will be in contact, say next week, Thanks and I wish you a nice sunny weekend!

Yippee! TGIF.

Hat, I have one scarifier/electro rake waiting for you if you want to borrow it.

I have a son too, so I can spot that one a mile off

I found some tips on "grass-growing" on youtube... ok, not the same type of grass.
I still have to share it: I was always wondering how a Swiss person could do something illegal. Now I know: It is possible to combine "illegal" with the Swissness of a watchmaker:

Hi Peachy

I had a bout of ugly toothache this week, and an even more ugly encounter with a "crooked" dentish clinic (only alleged).

Crooked dentists or am I over-reacting?

I went to this clinic 3 times this week, and today I went to Zurich University Dentistry and then visited a recommended dentist in Stadelhofen today.

In my hurry, I also forgot my physiotherapy session yesterday at 1800hrs.

You may imagine, the grass is last thing on my mind!

However I hope the offer still stands, in a few weeks' time when I am more in the mental frame to well keep my lawn.

Thanks
HAT