Garden planning: Lawn, kitchen garden, and shrubs?

Since this topic is also coming up for us, I took your thread and the hints as an opportunity to look for more information about lawn seeding.

I think if you type the term Rasen Knigge into Google, you'll find some helpful info. I do have my personal gardener at home ;), but I think this topic won't pass me by.

But first, the rest of the outdoor area has to be finished. Meaning – first finish the terrace and prepare the spot for the garden shed, then the lawn and the flower beds. Otherwise, you end up tearing apart (when building the terrace) with your behind what you've just built.

Oh, by the way – you wrote that you want to enclose the play area with berry bushes – among others gooseberries. Nice thing – the kids have a little snack right away. But the gooseberry isn’t called that for nothing. From childhood experience, I can report of long, nasty thorns. If the kid can’t stop playing there...
But maybe a thornless variety has been developed in recent years. There are now roses without thorns, too. (What would a gooseberry without thorns be called? "The berry, formerly known as gooseberry – without spikes" :D)

Also, if your kids aren’t older yet, you should teach them which berries are good and which are bad. There are supposedly berries that look tasty but have rather adverse effects on humans. But the child only sees: "Hm – there are red berries like in our garden. I’ll take some." :oops:

Don’t you have the problem of constantly having sand in the house? After playing in the sandbox, I always have to do a deep cleaning, before they turn the living room into a desert,... If there was still sand under the swing and so on, they would never be allowed in or out alone.

Exactly why no sand except in the sandbox. Here, after the playground, they first take off their shoes outside... I don’t really want that in the garden. :o

It’s still too early for lawn sowing!

The earliest time is from mid-May.

If you want a good, durable lawn that will also fend off moss and weeds for many years, you need seeds from a specialist retailer! Hardware stores and Dehner don’t count!

The seed mixture matters. Cheap seeds mostly contain fodder grasses that grow fast. Over time, that tears holes in the “carpet,” which leads to the settlement of weeds and moss.

I recommend a play and sports lawn.

Hm, in the garden forum they say it’s totally fine now because it’s so warm. Here, showers are expected starting this weekend as well. That’s great for the lawn too. I’ll keep reading a bit more... *ponder*

Perhaps pea gravel could be an alternative for the play area.

Pea gravel... Interesting, I definitely need to google that. I think we have something like that at the playground here. *thinking*

Since this topic will be relevant for us too, I took your thread and comments as an opportunity to search for more information about lawn sowing.

I think if you type the term “lawn etiquette” into Google, you’ll find some helpful info. I do have my regular gardener at home ;), but I think this topic won’t pass me by.

But first, the rest of the outdoor area has to be finished. That means—first finish the terrace and prepare the spot for the garden shed, then the lawn and the beds. Otherwise, when building the terrace, you’ll mess up what you just built with your behind.

Oh yes— you wrote that you want to enclose the play area with berry bushes—among other things gooseberries. Nice idea—they give the kids something to nibble on right away.

But gooseberries aren’t called that for nothing. From childhood experience, I can report long, nasty thorns. If the child can’t stop while playing, ... .

But maybe a thornless variety has been developed in recent years. There are now also rose bushes without thorns.

Additionally, if your kids are not older yet, you should teach them which berries are good and which are bad. There are also berries that look delicious but have a harmful effect on humans. The child only sees: “Hm—there are red berries like in our garden. I’ll grab some.” :oops:

That applies to us too. The terrace will be done earliest next year. Financially, it’s not possible any other way. Until then, gravel will have to do. And the tool shed etc. won’t come until two or three years from now... Until then, there will be lawn there, because otherwise the clay soil immediately turns to mud when it rains... That’s not acceptable. We just won’t do everything at once....
But thanks for the tip about the gooseberries. I’ve been explaining to the boys since last summer which berries they can eat and which not. At the in-laws, the older one always wanted to eat the bad red berries too. :o

The timing for sowing the lawn depends on the weather. It should ideally be consistently above 10° outdoor temperature and especially no frost at night, as the grass seeds require a certain soil temperature for their growth. These conditions can certainly already be met in some regions of Germany, so I wouldn’t generally say that you can’t sow grass seed yet. It’s best to add some starter fertilizer under the lawn mixture so that the grass can root well and deeply right away (feel free to do so again in autumn with a slow-release fertilizer so that the fresh lawn survives the winter better).

Yes, I was here at the specialty store and stocked up. I have a soil activator, fertilizer, and the seed itself... I've already spent 200 euros there. :eek: I thought that was a lot for "some" lawn. But I prefer to do it properly right away rather than having to overseed 100 times later...

By the way, we only created our second sun terrace some time after the lawn was already there. This actually resulted in some of the lawn around it suffering and in some parts only muddy patches remaining (due to all the back and forth walking, unloading of stones, equipment, etc.). However, with good care and a bit of patience, you can fix it again (loosening the soil a bit, overseeding, and good long-term fertilizer). You can now hardly tell at those spots that our lawn was once so stressed.

But be careful with the fertilizer to ensure it matches your soil conditions and does not contain any harmful components for animals and small children. That was especially important to me because some fertilizers need some time to fully dissolve, and there is always the risk that children/animals come into contact with it.