[soonas]

I have a very large lawn at my holiday home in County Kerry. I have problems with rushes, but I am happy just to keep cutting them back, so long as I can keep the lawn reasonably green. The soil is poor (we are on the side of a steep hill overlooking the sea and it is quite a windy location.

I plan to cut the grass next weekend. My question is; can I apply a dressing of 10:10:20 straight away to give it a boost coming into winter; or should I apply the fertiliser without cutting the grass? (It's about 4 weeks since it was cut, but the rate of growth is never great - even in peak growing season)

Go raibh maith agaibh

[walltoall]

Soonas,
I only just noticed nobody had answered your query and probably now you've either fed the lawn or not and cut it or not. BUT. Autumn is not the time to feed lawns really, particularly with artificials. Rushes are a sign of wet and acid soil which might give a better return if you were to give it regular light coatings of lime and sand and peat moss raked in to build up the first few inches of soil.

Living near the sea you have access to seaweed which is really what would build up your ground. But you'd need to put down a six inch layer give it the winter to settle and then if necessary plough it in. This sort of advice is not going to do a lawn any good, of course.

Sixty years ago I did a job like that with my Granda. In the Spring the following year after ploughing he grew early potatoes, which loosened up the ground. When they were up, he harrowed the field and sowed grass. For years after he had the best meadow in the parish. Obviously he did it for grazing but a lawn is only a cut and manicured meadow when all's said and done.