Scarification serves an important purpose when looking to maintain a clear and attractive lawn, but in the immediate aftermath it can leave your garden looking worse than ever. When looking to restore your garden there are a few steps you can take to speed up its recovery. In this guide on how to revive a lawn after scarifying, we’ll explore some easy ways to keep your lawn healthy and kickstart the growth of new grass.
The Value of Scarifying Your Lawn
For those looking to maintain the perfect lawn, scarification will be an important process, removing excess thatch and moss to ensure the full passage of nutrients, oxygen, and moisture to your soil. If you leave this thatch on your lawn it can cause a suite of issues, leading to dry patches and yellow grass. A lawn should be ideally scarified in either spring or autumn, with our guide explaining the reasons for each season. Scarification can be accomplished manually with a lawn rake, or with a dedicated scarification machine.
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What Condition Will a Lawn Be in After Scarifying?
Particularly after heavy scarification, your lawn may look quite bad, with dry, dead-looking patches. This is normal and part of the process to a healthier and more attractive lawn, and as long as you care for your lawn properly you shouldn’t be concerned. Your first step should be to remove all scarified thatch from your lawn. This is also a good time to check your lawn for weeds or leftover moss.
How to Revive Your Lawn After Scarification
While scarification is necessary to keep a lush green lawn that is free of excess thatch, the aftermath can be concerning. When wondering what to do after scarifying, there are a series of steps you can take to help revive your lawn to a healthier state.
Using Weed and Moss Killer
If you have noticed leftover moss and weeds within your lawn, now would be an excellent time to remove them. Weeds should be manually removed with a lawn-appropriate weed killer sprayed on the soil around them. While moss should ideally be sprayed and removed during scarification, if there are leftover patches you can spray them with a moss killer and pull them out. Weed and moss control is a vital aspect of lawn care, but if your scarified lawn has no obvious signs you can skip this stage.
Overseeding Your Lawn After Scarification
The scarifying process will naturally reduce the amount of grass on your lawn, making it important to overseed it. With the removal of thatch and moss, thorough aeration and covering of nutrients, your lawn will be at its most receptive for grass growth. A strong covering of grass seeds will help to revive your lawn, ensuring that your grass is thick and healthy throughout. You should look to scarify before you weed and feed your lawn, to ensure that the seeds you plant have the best possibility of survival.
Aerating After Scarification
Like scarification, aeration is used to help nutrients and water to penetrate the soil, particularly soil that is solid and dense. For a regular lawn, you can use a garden fork or aeration sandals, which will help encourage the growth of strong new grass. In cases where the soil is more compacted, you can use a mechanical aerator like a hollow tine aerator to further disrupt your soil and allow the passage of nutrients, helping to revive it.
Using a Top Dressing On Your Lawn
Top dressing is a product which can be poured over the surface of a lawn, designed to blend with the soil and level it out. You can apply a small layer of top dressing onto your soil to level it out. Top dressing can also contribute to the drainage of your soil and some types contain nutrients.
Fertilising After Scarification
Fertiliser will encourage the healthy and consistent growth of your lawn, giving it a dose of nutrients. Depending on whether you are scarifying in the spring or the autumn you will need to use a different lawn feed (either spring/summer or autumn/winter). This will help to encourage your lawn to revive.
Cutting Your Lawn After Scarification
Using a lawn mower after scarification can remove any tufts of grass left over, and can also allow you to properly assess the quality and consistency of your lawn surface, identifying the best places to overseed later on or apply top dressing. You can cut your lawn straight away after scarification.
How Long Will a Lawn Take to Recover After Scarifying?
As long as you carefully care for it, you can expect the recovery period after scarification to be between 4 and 6 weeks. Scarifying in spring should still then leave you with a healthy and attractive lawn through the summer, provided you scarify early enough in the season.
What’s Next After Scarification?
We have a comprehensive guide to year-round lawn care on our website, recommending the additional actions to take in either spring or autumn, and the vital steps during winter and summer.
Read our lawn care guide
Our Range of Gardening Products
Sims Garden Machinery has been selling quality gardening products for over 100 years, and today offers a huge selection of supplies perfect for both DIY and professional gardeners. We offer mechanical scarifiers including models that double as aerators. We also stock quality hand tools with rakes and garden forks. All of our products can be delivered across the UK, with a member of our team assembling and showcasing each product to you.
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