Turf – the ultimate guide
Introduction
As one of the UK’s leading turf growers, we get asked a huge amount of questions about turf, both from professional garden designers and landscape gardeners, and from members of the public.
Often, people simply don’t realise just how much goes into producing turf, or how many different varieties are available.
So, we thought with this post we’d go right back to basics and answers as many of those questions as we can in a single article.
This blog is all about getting to the roots of turf, so to speak, and giving you all the information you need to decide if it is right for you, and if so, what type of turf best suits your needs.
So, let’s get started with the most basic question of all …
What is turf?
This might appear to be a very simple question – what do we mean by turf – but in actual fact it is one we get asked quite often, even by people who work in the gardening industry. That’s because most people, whether professional gardeners or just keen amateurs, rely on seed when it comes to establishing a new lawn without considering the advantages turf can bring.
When we talk about turf, we are usually describing grass that has been grown on soil (controversially sometimes plastic – more on this later) which is sold in rolls.
Because the grass is pre-grown, turf creates an immediate green area for lawns, parks, amenities, municipal areas, and countless other uses. Because of this, turf is often described as functional grass rather than being ornamental. That is, grass that serves a purpose and is capable of withstanding a host of activities such as walking, cycling, running, dog walking, and playing sports.
But nowadays, turf is much more than just a functional grass only to be laid in places of heavy use. Turf can be used to create beautiful wildflower meadows, enhance biodiversity, bring colour to your garden, attract wildlife, make urban developments more sustainable, attenuate flooding, as well as a host of other uses that are good for the environment and for people.
Because of this, turf is growing in popularity as an effective and efficient way to create a green space or wildlife habitat in an instant, without need to grow a new crop from scratch.
How is turf produced?
Turf, like any other crop, is grown from seed. The advantage of this for gardeners and landscaping professionals is that the turf grower does all the hard work for them in the form of sowing and establishing the seed – the most common point at which crops fail.
Turf must be grown on very flat fields so, later, when it comes to harvest, it can be lifted efficiently and in even rolls.
The soil must be prepared prior to seeding and this is done by aerating it, which involves punching holes in the ground so air, water and nutrients can get to the root of the growing plants more easily and provide all the ingredients they need to grow.
Once seeded, the turf needs to be watered to ensure the seeds do not dry out. This is vital for the crop to become established and to go on to become high-quality turf. In majority of cases where domestic lawns fail, it is due to a lack of watering, but a commercial turf grower cannot afford to make this mistake, so the correct amount of moisture must be added as the crop develops.
Fertiliser is also applied to the growing turf, to ensure it has all the nutrients it needs to thrive.
Once the grass plants have become established, it is time for mowing to begin. Mowing takes place three or four times per week and is carried out to ensure the grass plants put their energy into developing a strong root structure and not into increasing the length of the swards. This strong root structure is what makes turf robust even in less favourable growing conditions, and helps hold the turf together.
The grass cuttings that are created through mowing are left on the turf as these add nutrients back into the soil.
The turf is ready to harvest after around 12 months. This is done by a tractor equipped with a specialist tool that flattens, cuts and rolls the turf in one action. The turf is then loaded onto pallets in readiness for shipping.
What different types of turf are there?
Many people we speak to think there is just one type of turf – grass! Of course, grass makes up the majority of most turf types, but the specific grass types used in any one turf depend largely on what it will be used for.
For example, our Low Maintenance Fine Turf, which requires less water, fertiliser and mowing than our standard turfs and is used mainly on golf courses and green roofs, contains an entirely different mix of grass varieties than our Festival Landscape Turf, which is hardwearing, dense, and ideal for lawns and general landscaping.
Once you start getting into wildflower or species rich turf, the grass varieties are augmented with a range of other species, including wildflowers, herbs, and flowering perennials.
However, the main types of turf include:
· Landscaping turf
Landscaping turfs are used by the landscaping industry and civil engineers to produce green spaces, often in urban environments, that reduce pollution, promote biodiversity and create a natural habitat.
Often, these turfs provide the perfect solution to challenging situations, such as green roofs, where they need to be cut into irregular shapes or be laid at acute angles.
At Lindum Turf, we carry a large range of landscaping turfs for all situations, including our LT7 Festival Turf which is hardwearing and easy to maintain, to specialists landscaping turfs such as Grassfelt, which is designed to stablise soil, especially on slopes.
· Sports turf
Sports turf, such as that used on golf courses, has to be of superior quality and high consistent. But it has to be hardwearing too, particularly when it comes to surfaces for sports such as football and horse racing.
Tough wearing Ryegrass is a key constituency of turf used in football matches and equestrian sports, as football boots and horse’s feet can cause a huge amount of wear and tear.
For golf greens, and Bent/Fescue mix is preferred with a very high purity to create an environment where the ball can travel as freely as possible.
· Residential turf
Residential turf refers, of course, to domestic lawns. But even in this category there is a lot of variety depending on whether your lawn is going to be purely ornamental, or you need something that will withstand day-to-day use.
For example, our LT8 Festival Lawn Plus turf is a hardwearing product suitable for lawns that will experience day-to-day use, as well as municipal pathways.
Like our hardwearing sports turfs, it is based on Ryegrass, but adds Smooth Stalked Meadow Grass and Fescue to form a dense turf of uniform green colour which is free from broadleaved weeds.
· Wildflower turf
So far, all the turfs we’ve talked about only contain grasses. But turf can be much more than that. Our wildflower turf is a classic example and contains a mixture of 27 species of wildflowers, herbs and flowering perennials that create a space that is bursting with colour and a wonderful habitat for wildlife.
Laying our wildflower turf is the quickest and easiest way to create a wildflower meadow effect which is fantastic for biodiversity, particularly those all-important pollinators, helping people who buy it to do their bit for the environment.
· Species rich turf
Species rich turf is also a wildflower turf, but one that contains grasses as well as the wildflowers, meaning it can be walked on or played on just like a standard lawn.
Species rich can be cut short like a standard lawn, or left to grow out, enabling the other species to come through. It is a fantastic replacement for standard, grass monocrop lawns, which have limited value in attracting pollinators and other insects.
Whatever turf you choose – make it plastic-free!
Although turf is generally good for the environment as it can be used to create immediate green spaces in challenging locations, as well as providing habitat for insects and pollinators, some quarters of the industry are blighted by an ongoing issue. As we alluded to in the introduction to this piece, a number of turf producers continue to use non-recyclable, single use plastic mesh as a growing medium for turf.
This plastic mesh is used to hold the turf together, but when the turf is laid, the plastic mesh decays over time, forming harmful microplastics in the soil which can then even pollute local watercourses and get into the food chain.
Although the industry is slowly changing, a large quantity of UK turf is still produced in this way and here at Lindum Turf, we feel that is wrong. It is doubly so if people are buying wildflower or species rich turfs to help the environment, but are unwittingly burying single use plastics at the same time.
That is why we encourage everyone to ensure the turf they buy is plastic free, whether they are purchasing from us or other companies. All of our turfs are grown on a fully biodegradable, moisture retentive, plastic-free mat that does no harm to the environment at all – a fact that we pride ourselves on.
As the industry moves forward, our hope is that all producers will move to fully biodegradable, plastic-free growing mediums as soon as they can and consumers will no longer have to ask if the turf they are buying contains single-use plastics. Until then, however, it is imperative to find out before you buy and if the turf does contain plastic, to shop elsewhere.
To view all of Lindum Turf’s products, click here https://turf.co.uk/all-products.
ENDS