Measuring The Area of Your Lawn | Lawn Care Q&A
Question:
How Can I Easily and Accurately Measure my Lawn?
I am trying to measure my lawn so that I can work out how much turf I need to buy, or possibly for buying grass seed. It’s a bit of an irregular shape though, and I’m not exactly sure how I can measure it accurately when there are round areas.
Also, I’m a bit lost in my secondary school maths…. can you explain how I find the square footage or metreage from these measurements?
Any help greatly appreciated!
Answer:
The easy way to do this is to draw the shape on paper first of all – this gives you a rough plan of the lawn on which to write your measurements. Next, go out to your lawn and choose the straightest edge of your lawn – start at one end of that edge. Measure the distance across the lawn from where you’re are standing, then write that down on the plan. Then move one metre over and measure again.
Keep measuring across the lawn at these one metre spacings, writing each down. Lastly, add up all of these measurements, and divide that number total by the number of measurements that you took, giving an average distance.
This is then repeated at a ninety degree angle. The first result is then multiplied by the second result to give the total area of the lawn. This is a rough measurement, but it gives a surprisingly accurate area on the vast majority of lawns, and is far easier than methods which only provide a bit more accuracy.
I hope this is of help to you.
Happy measuring!
Duncan
I notice on the photo of cutting the grass on a bowling green that they are cutting along the line of play. Should the cutting not be done from corner to corner so as not to cause runs in the line of play?
Hi Alec, cutting in as many directions as possible minimises any formation of runs in the green. Only cutting from corner to corner restricts cutting direction into two lines, not ideal for providing the best surface. You would not cut straight down the line of that days play, the only reason being the cut line gives players something to aim at.
I hope that answers your question.
Duncan.