DadTalk

How to grow a perfect lawn

The primary reality of lawn-making is that grass needs a lot of sunshine. It's a simple equation – the more wear and tear you expect from your turf, the more sunshine it will need

All beautiful lawns are alike: immaculately even green grass stretching smoothly away; effortless mowing lines, neatly edged; the sound of birdsong and a table laid for afternoon tea. It's the variety of ways a lawn can go wrong that is shocking. You only have to spend five minutes with Google to realise the sheer range of problems people report with their lawns: patches under trees that never flourish; mysterious yellowing where dogs have relieved themselves; accounts of unique green slime moulds right out of Fungus the Bogeyman. It seems that we all long for that proper 1950s granddad lawn. But is it just a fantasy? Or did they just have better chemicals then?

The primary reality of lawn-making is that grass needs a lot of sunshine. It's a simple equation – the more wear and tear you expect from your turf, the more sunshine it will need to repair itself. Premiership football teams with increasingly tall and shady stadiums face this problem, and they solve it with the help of a Dutch former rose-grower, Nico van Vuuren. He developed the huge banks of lights wheeled on to the pitch whenever the home team aren't playing. Even at night, they cast an unearthly glow over Arsenal's prize-winning Emirates turf.

Read on in the Independent online to see if you can create your own piece of perfect football turf.