wingless' Peat Roller

wingless · November 28, 2018

The lawn around my New England property was an annual exercise in effort, cost and frustration.

My property included a annual contract w/ the local name-brand lawn care chemical company. The discussions about the unacceptable lawn condition ALWAYS included them stating that they were setting conditions for the lawn to be terrific Next Year. (The lawn was NEVER terrific next year.) I finally got smart, cancelled the contract and switched to DIY.

My biggest issue was that a huge part of my lawn had 100% sun exposure. It was IMPOSSIBLE for me to dump enough water onto that part of the lawn to keep it from burning in July.

The other issues were scattered weeds and patches of different types of grasses. There was also one large region that had been rough, but was now lawn, that didn't have in-ground irrigation.

The solution I implemented was to apply a skim layer of peat moss, twice per year, every year over the entire lawn. This was spreading 50 big bags of peat moss at each application. I also switched to exclusively using starter fertilizer. I discontinued using pre-emergent fertilizer, so that I could seed at any time, as-required.

The weeds and the different grass types were resolved by a combination of hand-extraction and by thickening the lawn with healthy desired grass.

The in-ground irrigation system was modified to provide coverage over the entire lawn.

For the peat application, I found a peat roller to be the best solution. This is a drum with an expanded metal skin and a sliding door to the interior. I would fill the interior with loose peat moss then traverse the lawn in rows, spreading the peat moss as a thin layer.

The results of these changes were to attain a $1M lawn. The problem of July burning abated. Over time the top layer of earth became thick, dark, rich soil. The normal watering cycle was sufficient after the peat moss top cover had been implemented.