I scarified my lawn last year and it brought it back to life in just two weeks — it's still the greenest I've ever seen it

Last summer, my lawn was suddenly overrun with weeds, and I thought I’d seen the last of its green, healthy days.

After gleaning as many lawn care tips as I could, I landed on one solution: scarifying. As it turned out, the grass was full of thatch, and learning how to scarify our lawn was one of the best decisions I ever made for my garden.

I took photos of the lawn during its weed infestation, after scarifying it, and then just two weeks later, when it bounced back into lush, green growth. It turned me into a real advocate of lawn scarification as a miracle-worker in the garden — so I wanted to share my lawn’s journey from lacklustre (well, half-dead) to a bright green oasis.

Before — with selfheal

It all started with a weed problem. I’m all for a clover lawn and its wildlife benefits, but soon, another weed set root in the grass: selfheal. It's one of the purple-flowered weeds you often see lurking in lawns.

This weed spread quickly. Before we knew it, a dark patch had appeared in the centre of the lawn, and the grass began to die out in waves. Learning how to get rid of weeds in a lawn is no easy feat, especially with a fast-spreading weed like selfheal.

So, I had to take a closer look at the health of the lawn as a whole. I suspected that moss, dead grass and the weeds were competing with the grass for nutrients, light and water — and winning.

I tried using weedkiller, which did kill a lot of the selfheal off, but my lawn was left in such a patchy state, I knew it needed some extra help.

I thought I’d give scarifying a whirl — and it worked a treat.

Scarifying

By August, I decided it was as good a time as any to scarify our lawn. This was quite a risky move — most lawn experts recommend spring or autumn as the best times to scarify a lawn, but I thought it was worth giving it a try since the grass was already on its way out.

I used the WOLF-Garten Multi-Change Roller Rake Tool Head, available at Amazon (the handle is sold separately), and it did a brilliant job. As I scarified manually, rather than using an electric scarifier, it was tough work, but I raked out a huge amount of thatch, exposing the culprit behind the unhealthy lawn.

After scarifying

In the days following scarification, the lawn really looked worse for wear. In fact, I thought I’d killed the entire area off at first — it became an expanse of dry, yellow grass. As I’d scarified it ‘out of season’, I thought I’d made the wrong move for a week or so.

Luckily, this was just the beginning of its renovation. A few days after scarifying, I laid topsoil over the patchy areas and sprinkled some fresh grass seed down. In just two weeks, fresh, green grass began to appear.

2 weeks later

I scarified the lawn on 18th August, and by 2nd September, it began to shoot vivid green grass again.

Over the weeks that followed, the lawn was unrecognisable. It wasn't just bright green — it was also thick and luscious, unlike any condition I'd seen it in before.

It's worth noting that I had to water the grass regularly over this period, as temperatures were still high. Without that crucial step, I don't think I'd have seen the same results. If you scarify your lawn in spring or autumn, though, the rain (and cooler weather in general) will do a lot of the work for you.

So, would I recommend scarifying during the summer? Usually, no — this was an emergency measure — but what I absolutely would recommend is thinking about scarifying your lawn this spring (especially if it's been a while since its last purge). It could be the very treatment it needs to fend off weeds over the summer ahead.

What you'll need