Ever wondered why you are advised to lay your turf as soon as you have received it?
We have written this blog to help define the importance of laying your turf immediately on delivery. There a few steps that need to be considered before laying your new lawn to ensure that it will survive, especially as we move from the cooler months into the warmer months. Some people forget that turf is in fact a living product, which means that as soon as it has been harvested it will slowly begin to die and the longer it is left on the pallet, the greater chance of Pallet Burn. For those that haven’t heard of pallet burn before, it is a term used to describe what happens when the turf heats up after being left too long and starts to burn from the centre of the pallet, essentially combusting on the pallet. This will result in a brown semi-circle shape on your turf slab, which can look very unsightly. If your turf has developed Pallet Burn you will also be able to smell the grass and it will smell like it is going off and will be hot to the touch.
This is what Pallet Burn looks like
The best way to avoid pallet burn is to have strategic steps in place so that you can make sure someone is available to lay the turf as soon as possible, the same day that it is getting delivered or picked up. We offer installation services to help with this if you don’t have anybody available or can’t be there for delivery. The best way to ensure you are ready to get your turf delivered is to make sure that you have done all the preparation work required. This is a very crucial step for establishing a healthy lawn because the turf will only ever be as good as the preparation work done.
You will also need to have a good watering schedule set up, as a new lawn requires regular, deep watering in order to establish a good root system and have a good resilience to changes in climate. We don’t recommend preparing the area and laying on the same day. If you are planning on going on holidays or are required to be away not long after your turf has been laid, it is important to have someone organised to keep watering your lawn or to wait until you get back to lay your new turf.
If you haven’t been able to lay the turf straight away and discover you have Pallet Burn, unfortunately there is no easy way to repair it and there’s a good chance it will need to be replaced.
From the farm we will harvest your turf at the coolest point of the evening to assist in keeping the turf cooler for longer, and this allows the turf to be at its freshest for your delivery. If you do require any turf to be replaced, we offer smaller ‘patch-size’ slabs called Lawn Block to fill in any gaps that haven’t survived. For any more helpful installation and after-care advice please feel free to give one of our friendly staff a call on 1800 767 644.