In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Allen is right.
I spoke a week or so ago to a gardiner and he told me it was a perfect time to sow a lawn (north Tuscany) as it was still mild enough and it won't need to be watered every day now the really hot weather has passed.
He is doing the job for me and assures me I will have a lovely lawn when I next visit in December. :Dancing_biggrin:
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
I agree with the others you can still plant grass seed whilst the earthis still warm BUT it is no good just sewing seed onto prepared ground, you must, in my experience, spread an anti ant powder a few days before. We bought a sack of granuals called something like G8 (there have been past threads on this subject so try searching, I posted name there). Then once you have sewn the seed it must be covered with a layer of fine earth...and then gently water it every other day for a week or so. if you know all this, sorry, but I have seen people throw down seed and the ants building little mountains of it, making all the hardwork worthless.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Noble is absolutely right.
Ants around here have been a total pain this year and the mindlessly relentless little blighters will find and haul off anything remotely edible.
We use a Bayer product labelled [I]Baythion esca formiche[/I]. I think the active ingredient also comes in a powder form, but the stuff available in a blue plastic container in agri supply shops and Castorama is little sugar strands with the poison in them.
As Noble says, scatter this stuff around (it doesn't take much – you don't say how big your grassed area will be, but I imagine the large container will be sufficient) when it's dry, allow the greedy little "£$%^&s three or four days to haul it off and kill themselves, then sow your grass seed.
Al
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
We were told by a gardener in Le Marche yesterday that it was fine to sow grass seed now but a company from we have bought trees told us the opposite so who knows! When i told the gardener this he said they obviously didn't have people available to do it now and wanted us to wait till next autumn when they would put into their work schedule and have people available.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Well you see it was the guy who owns the tree/plant farm that is doing mine and who recommended this time of year.
He didn't mention ants though, wonder if he thinks of that? :nah::eeeek:
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[quote=Robert;100419]We were told by a gardener in Le Marche yesterday that it was fine to sow grass seed now but a company from we have bought trees told us the opposite so who knows! When i told the gardener this he said they obviously didn't have people available to do it now and wanted us to wait till next autumn when they would put into their work schedule and have people available.[/quote]
...And what sort of state is the area going to be in by next autumn?
I'm definitely not a fan of bowling green lawns (far too lazy, apart from anything else), but as I said before, any area of ground left bare in Italy will be sprouting at least ten different kinds of self-seeded plant within a few days. Most people call these "weeds".
So I suspect that if you leave it until next autumn, your tree nursery people will arrive to find an area infested with all sorts of plants, some very deep rooted, some of which will have scattered hundreds of their own seeds, some of which will have propagated themselves by shoots from their spreading roots. That will, doubtless, make a wonderful job for them clearing out all that before they even broadcast the first handful of grass seed. I'm not sure you'll consider it cost-effective or even very sensible in retrospect.
I would suggest that you get some grass seed in to the area now so at least there's some sort of competition for the weeds that are probably already sprouting.
Al
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Chris I think Allen is saying your garden may end up looking like mine was. :yes::bigergrin:
Why do you beleive that mid-October in central Italy is too late to sow grass seed?
The advice I've seen is that you should make sure the seed has germinated before the first frost. While it has been relatively chilly here (at 500m s.l.m. under the Gran Sasso) at times over the last month or so, I think the nightime low has got into the high single figures only once or twice. Down toward the coast today, it was 23°.
The farmers here are still sowing winter wheat – which is, of course, just another type of grass. If it can cope with the temperatures now and get started growing, I suspect that grass seed could as well.
Given that grass seed doesn't cost a fortune and that weeds here are so vigorous and appear on any bare patch of ground seemingly within hours, I'd suggest you get yourself some grass seed as soon as possible and sow it now.
Al