Today we laid the turf. Landscape gardening UK

As we ordered the turf last Friday, we were surprised to find that today, the turfing day, was dry. We currently having an unbelievably bad run of wet days on the day the turf arrives. Even with weeks like we are having in the UK currently. Blue sky’s, lots of sun, talks of an Indian summer (what ever that is) and out of nowhere, the turf delivery seems to land on a day that defies belief. Usually high winds, with constant heavy rain hits us, and then vanishes as soon as we are finished, but today our luck was in. The turf arrived and all 6 pallets seemed quite dry, which made them a lot lighter to move so this speeded up our laying process, but would require a lot more water once laid. As the rolls of turf dry out, they usually shrink so it is important to get the sprinkler onto the lawn as soon as you can in weather like this. We also needed to get the whole 6 pallets laid in one day ideally. Turf usually survives for about 3 days rolled up, depending on conditions. However expect day 3 to be quite yellow, and would also need good care afterwords to make sure it doesn’t die off. Another point on that, is that it is quite possible to already be 1 or 2 days old as it arrives. This is always a big problem when buying from garden centres and hardware stores. I’ve seen rolled turf at B&Q that had been left out in the sun for more than a week, and is still up for sale. So always take care when buying off the shelf.

There were 6 lawns within this design, the first one we tackled was the largest, and was crescent shaped. 3 of the designated 6 pallets were for this area, so it took up most of the day. It was also slower than the others to work on, as there were many awkward cuts to do due to the shape. We always start shapes like this with a ring around the outside, and cut into it hat when filling the middle. You can just about see the corten edging that we put in as a boundary between lawn and flower bed that I have previously blogged about. It is just where Alex is laying the outer ring.

The other beds were much smaller and rectangular, so there was a lot less cutting to do, which made these very easy and were finished rather quickly compared to the larger lawn.

All in all is was quite a hard days work, but the 4 of us started at 9:30, and had it done by 15:30, with a few more quick cold drink breaks in the shade than normal. We had 384 rolls, each of them we’re 1 square meter, and we were left with 12, so the quantifying was pretty good.

Not too much longer on this job now. A few more extra little jobs given to us today, but apart from that it is just the toppings to go onto the pathways and driveway left to do. The clients are planting this one themselves, which would have been nice to do, so the final pictures will be without the beds filled unfortunately, but all in all, its gone well, even with the 7 weeks off due to lock down. Phase 2 will probably start in the autumn, which would be finishing the driveway down to the road, among other things. A very small amount of this turf is just to neaten thing temporarily, and will be finished off, and added to at a later date.

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