Lawn Soil
Tip:
Unprepared
soil will severely reduce the chances of a successful lawn to almost
zero. Ask
yourself "Have I tried to grow any other plants in that
soil?" or "If I was to attempt to grow other plants in
this soil, do I think they would grow?"
The right soil is crucial, but you will almost certainly need to fertilise, more importantly unprepared soil will greatly restrict the types of lawn grasses that can be grown.
The best colour for growing Lawns in Spain is dark brown to black.
Soil texture and composition is at the
heart of how much watering your lawn will need. As a starting point, I always like to take a handful of soil, wet
it and squeeze hard to squeeze out the water and produce a firm ball
of soil. Then prod the remaining ball of soil. If it begins to fall
apart with a little coaxing, then this is the right consistency. If
the soil is too clayey ... then not only will mud be appearing from
between your fingers, but the ball of soil will not break apart when
prodded. Speak to us about a soil test -
we can tell you how to create the perfect soil for growing a lawn.
Remember topsoil in Spain is the
soil that is scraped from the top of a field. Often worse than your
soil and invariably full of stones and weed seeds. Ask for a bucket
load to test. Water it for a couple of weeks and see what
grows.
If the soil is too sandy, no amount of squeezing will
produce a firm ball of soil.
So add more sand and organic matter
to clayey soil and more organic matter and other soil to sandy soil.
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The deeper the topsoil the better is the lawn.
On moist soil, dig a spade into the soil. 3 - 4 inches is good and 8 inches is great.
This is a good indication of the depth of your topsoil.
Our warm season grasses have root systems that can go down over 2 meters, so a good topsoil with a clayey sub soil is a great insurance policy for long hot summers.
Most of the soil in Spain is alkaline - i.e. no good for growing most plants. Some areas contain a lot of salt - again no good for growing a lawn. For definitive results it is always advisable to perform a soil test. We can do this for you by post.
There are different types of soil and different lawns that will flourish with them; these are the soil types that are most
common in the mediterranean:
Clay Soils
* Clayey
* Sandy
* Chalky
* Loamy
Not all of these soils are suitable for lawns so it is best to check
early on to find out which soil your garden contains.
To help with
descriptions...
This type of soil is normally very sticky and pliable and often lumpy in wet conditions, but when they dry out they form hard clots. Clay soil is made up of fine particles, which contain little in the way of air spaces, making them hard to work with and at best difficult to drain.
Sandy Soils
Sandy soils are gritty and have formed from weathered rocks: like limestone, shale and quartz. Should the soil contain enough in
the way of organic matter then it is easy to cultivate most things within it but sometimes it is prone to over-draining and drying out in the summer months. Likewise, in the autumn and winter months it can have some difficulty holding on to moisture and nutrients making it a good soil to work with but a difficult one to keep topped up with everything your lawn would need to survive. A lot of additional work is involved.
Chalky Soils
Normally light brown in colour, Chalky soils are of an alkaline nature and will usually contain stones of varying sizes. Drying out quickly in
the summer and blocking out trace elements such as iron and manganese, it is definitely not a soil to try and establish plants or grass in.
The quality of Chalky soil - it has to be said - is quite poor and needs a lot of regular work including the introduction of
fertilizers and other soil improvers over a sustained period of time.
Loamy Soils
Loamy soil is the one soil that most gardeners say is the perfect soil to grow in.
Loamy soils have varying degrees of texture. These are normally full of organic matter and drain well but generally still retain a lot of moisture and are rich in nutrients.