A winter of damp and shade leaves most lawns looking sorry: matted, mossy and pale. A bit of rough treatment in spring, just as the grass starts growing again, is exactly what it needs to thicken up into something you are happy to walk barefoot on.
Wait for the grass to grow
Hold off until the lawn is actively growing and the surface has dried out a little, usually well into spring. Working a sodden lawn does more harm than good, and grass that is still dormant will not recover from the rough handling.
Scarify out the rubbish
Over the year a layer of dead grass, moss and thatch builds up at the base and chokes the lawn. Raking it out, called scarifying, is the single most useful spring job.
- Drag a spring-tine rake hard across the lawn to pull out the debris.
- Expect to fill several bags; the lawn will look wrecked at first.
- It bounces back thicker within a few weeks.
Let the air in
If the ground is hard and compacted, spiking it with a garden fork every fifteen centimetres or so lets air, water and feed reach the roots. On a small lawn the fork is fine; for a big one, a hollow-tine aerator does a better job.
Feed and overseed
Finish with a spring lawn feed high in nitrogen to green it up and thicken the sward. Scatter fresh grass seed over any bare or moss-scarred patches, keep them watered, and within a month the lawn looks transformed.