Specification – Standard Turf

Uses

Spooners Standard Turf is widely used in landscaping for its consistency and reliability. It’s a high quality general purpose turf used on public parks and green spaces, domestic lawns, business and science parks, and commercial landscaping.

The turf contains the latest varieties of dwarf ryegrasses to give a really tough, hard wearing turf. Gone are the days of the old types of ryegrass, which were coarse and very fast growing. Today, the modern ryegrasses are fine-leaved, slow growing, and easy to maintain. Fescue and smoothstalked meadowgrass are included in the mixture to provide the density of sward expected in a high quality turf.

The typical seed mixture used is:

• Perennial Rye grass
• Smooth stalk Meadow grass
• Fescue

Mowing

Our Standard turf can be mown as low as 10mm with a well-adjusted cylinder mower. But it can also be maintained at a height of up to 75mm. Rotary mowers are the best option for heights of cut above 20mm. The key to maintaining quality is to mow regularly, and to never take more than a third of the leaf off at any one time. The longer the grass, the better the turf can cope with adverse weather conditions. For example, the length of grass is directly proportional to the depth of rooting, which in turn provides better tolerance of drought conditions.

Nutrition

Standard turf needs approximately 150kg Nitrogen per hectare per year. This can be provided by two applications of fertiliser – one in the spring and one in the autumn. A typical programme would be:

April – 40gms/m2 Scotts All-Round 23:5:10

September – 40gms/m2 Scotts Pre-Winter 14:5:21

These fertilisers use controlled release technology which provides an even food source for the plants over 4-5 months. In general, more nitrogen will promote the ryegrass in the mixture at the expense of the fescue. Conversely, a more austere fertiliser programme will result in a fescue dominated sward.