Choosing Turf

When planning for a lawn, one of the quickest ways of doing this is to think about laying turf as opposed to planting grass seed.

There are a wide variety of turfs available on the market today but your choices may vary depending on the quality of the lawn you want and - more importantly when it comes to buying turf - how much money you have to spend. As turf is grown from seed under controlled conditions the cost of it may vary depending on the type and how much of it you require i.e. how big a garden you have and how big you want your lawn to be?

Common Turf

The three most common types of turf available in the United Kingdom are:

• Purpose Grown Turf

This is - as the name suggests - purposely grown under specific conditions so that it is free from weeds and disease; raised from the newest grass cultivars it can contain different grasses for different uses and can even be prepared to your own specifications. The downside to this is that it can take anything up to 18 months to grow and as a result can cost you considerably more than you might like to pay.

• Meadow Turf

This kind of turf is less fine in texture to the aforementioned purpose grown variety and is normally grown for agricultural usage. Usually the cheapest variety of turf you can buy and you may well find it contains vigorously growing, broad leaved weeds, which may include daisies. That said, however, the quality can vary a great deal. With this in mind you should always buy your turf from a known and reputable supplier to minimise the risk of purchasing a turf that may not be fit for purpose.

Using weed killers on the turf to minimise the risk of weeds the turf is then referred to as treated turf and it is worth remembering that lawns that are created using meadow turf may well require considerably more mowing and have a coarse appearance. However this particular kind of turf is more suited to domestic use.

• Sea Marsh Turf

As the name might suggest, this particular variety of turf grows along the side of river estuaries and often contains a silty layer, which can restrict drainage. Bearing in mind that this turf grows alongside water, nature has designed it to withstand water logging and therefore it becomes difficult to keep moist and can cause problems with its growing and also it's appearance. For this reason - although Sea Marsh Turf is still very common - it is recommended that one of the aforementioned turfs is chosen especially for domestic purpose.

With any of the turfs looked at in this article there is a marginal amount of maintenance that is required once it is laid. For the most part this includes regular mowing and watering - if weather conditions dictate a drop in rainfall for example - and also the treatment of weeds as and when they become visible.

It is safe to say that if you have the money to spend you can have a high quality lawn that will require the minimal amount of effort to be bestowed upon it but as we have already discussed - if budgetary constraints dictate that a turf of a lesser quality is purchased - then more work will be needed.

With all this in mind however the results of a turf lawn are visually and personally satisfying and the possibility of laying a turf lawn is something you should seriously consider.