Swardwrightparameter bench18/24 entries released
Swardwright parameter bench
Species profiles, operations and field symptoms, all reduced to numbers you can measure: cutting height, nitrogen rate, tine spacing, irrigation.
Two axes, set the numbers first
Species × cutting height
Three ways in
Grass profiles
One species per page. Cutting height, nitrogen, tine spacing and irrigation, plus the parameters those four are derived from.
Operations
One job per page. Working depth, spacing, the window it belongs in, and how to calibrate your own machine to it.
Symptom reading
A symptom read back to the parameter that produced it. If the reading does not fit, the parameter is what changes.
Four readings
Most recent releases
Moss: fixing the moisture, light and pH parameters rather than killing the moss
Moss is a symptom, not an invader. It grows where grass cannot: wet, compacted, shaded, low-pH, thin. Chemicals that kill moss leave bare ground that moss recolonises within a season unless the…
Colonial bentgrass: the 10 mm lawn that needs a reel mower
Colonial bentgrass is the only species here that will hold a genuine 10 to 20 mm cut. It also has the shallowest roots in the set at 80 to 120 mm, the fastest thatch build-up, and a hard requirement…
Irrigation: deep soaks, ET replacement and deliberate deficit
Watering a lawn correctly comes down to two numbers: how much reaches the root zone in one application, and how dry the soil is allowed to get before the next one. Deep infrequent soaking grows deep…
Hard fescue: the cheapest lawn you can own
Hard fescue runs on 5 g of nitrogen per square metre per year and 12 mm of water a week. It is the species for slopes, road verges and any lawn where the mower comes out six times a season. The trade…
Overseeding: rate, soil contact and the autumn window
Overseeding fails for one of three reasons: the seed sat on thatch instead of soil, the soil temperature was wrong, or the rate was wrong for the species. Get all three right and a thin lawn thickens…
Common bermudagrass from seed: cheaper, coarser, still unkillable
The seeded bermudagrasses are the only way to get a bermudagrass lawn without buying sod. Establishment drops from 26 to 52 weeks down to 10 to 14, the price falls by roughly 80 percent, and the…
Bare patches: reading the edge of the patch to find the cause
Every bare patch has a cause, and the cause is readable from the shape of the patch and the behaviour of the turf at its edge. A ring pattern is disease, a carpet that lifts is grubs, a path is wear…
St. Augustinegrass Floratam: the shade answer in the warm season
Floratam is the only warm-season species here that keeps a usable stand in real shade, rated 4 of 5. That is its whole reason to exist. The cost is a coarse blade that cannot be cut below 50 mm, the…