Bolton, England
Mowing
When you can next cut it, and the best slot this weekend.
Best weekend slot
Sunday 3pm–8pm
Verdict: Good
ground soft — 56mm rain over the last week
Next mow
Sunday 3pm–8pm
Verdict: Good
ground soft — 56mm rain over the last week
The next 10 days
Column height is how mowable the day is; the lighter band is the best stretch within it. The line is soil temperature at 6cm.
9°C — seeding
Soil at 6cm 16.6°C cooling to 13.3°C
Thursday 3 September: Good. No — 0.1mm of rain falling.
Thursday 3 SeptemberConfident
No — 0.1mm of rain falling.
- Marginal:Grass wetness
- Grass drydried off since a shower 0 hours ago
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground saturated61mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.86
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature16°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light20 km/h
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Friday 4 September: Good. No — ground waterlogged.
Friday 4 SeptemberConfident
No — ground waterlogged.
- Marginal:Grass wetness
- Grass drydried off since a shower 0 hours ago
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground saturated49mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.70
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature15°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light19 km/h
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Saturday 5 September: Good. No — ground saturated, 61mm rain over the last week.
Saturday 5 SeptemberConfident
No — ground saturated, 61mm rain over the last week.
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground saturated61mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.63
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature13°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light12 km/h
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Sunday 6 September: Good. 3pm–8pm — ground soft — 56mm rain over the last week
Sunday 6 September · 3pm–8pmConfident
3pm–8pm — ground soft — 56mm rain over the last week
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground soft56mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.89
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature13°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light17 km/h
- Sociable hours
- Fine by the neighbours
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Monday 7 September: Good. No — 0.2mm of rain falling.
Monday 7 SeptemberReasonably confident
No — 0.2mm of rain falling.
- Poor:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground saturated44mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.60
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature14°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light11 km/h
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Tuesday 8 September: Good. No — ground saturated, 52mm rain over the last week.
Tuesday 8 SeptemberReasonably confident
No — ground saturated, 52mm rain over the last week.
- Marginal:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground saturated52mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing steadilygrowth potential 0.39
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature10°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light6 km/h
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Wednesday 9 September: Not worth it. No — 0.1mm of rain falling.
Wednesday 9 SeptemberReasonably confident
No — 0.1mm of rain falling.
- Marginal:Grass wetness
- Grass drydried off since a shower 0 hours ago
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground saturated54mm rain over the last week
- Marginal:Growth
- Growing slowlygrowth potential 0.23
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature11°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light10 km/h
Limiting factor:grass wetness
Thursday 10 September: Not worth it. No — 0.1mm of rain falling.
Thursday 10 SeptemberReasonably confident
No — 0.1mm of rain falling.
- Poor:Grass wetness
- Grass dampraining now
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground saturated51mm rain over the last week
- Marginal:Growth
- Growing slowlygrowth potential 0.27
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature10°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light6 km/h
Limiting factor:grass wetness
Friday 11 September: Not worth it. No — 1.3mm of rain falling.
Friday 11 SeptemberLow confidence this far out
No — 1.3mm of rain falling.
- Poor:Grass wetness
- Grass wetraining now
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground saturated46mm rain over the last week
- Marginal:Growth
- Growing slowlygrowth potential 0.33
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature12°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light12 km/h
Limiting factor:grass wetness
Saturday 12 September: Good. No — ground waterlogged.
Saturday 12 SeptemberLow confidence this far out
No — ground waterlogged.
- Marginal:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground saturated53mm rain over the last week
- Marginal:Growth
- Growing slowlygrowth potential 0.28
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature11°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light9 km/h
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Growth
How fast it is growing, and when it will need cutting again.
0.86Growing strongly
Growth potential, 0 to 1 — the turf-industry measure of how fast grass can grow at today's temperature and day length.
Putting on about 5.2mm a day. A lawn cut today would be ready for another in around 4 days.
Worked out from the PACE Turf growth potential model and day length —how and why.
What this means right now
Seeding
Soil temperature at germination depth, and when the window opens.
Soil temperature
15.9°C61°F
at 6cm — germination depth
Cooling over the next 10 days.
Seeding conditions are open — soil is 15.9°C at 6cm and holding above 9°C.
Cross-checks against an independent estimate from air temperature (16.3°C), which agrees to within 0.1°C.
Almost every UK and Irish lawn is a ryegrass and fescue mix, whether it was sown or turfed. We assume that, and use9°C as the seeding threshold.
I know what grass I have
The differences are small. Ryegrass is the quickest off the mark; bluegrass is the slowest and wants the warmest soil. Everything else sits between.
| Species | Soil temp | Days |
|---|---|---|
| Perennial ryegrasslikely yours | 8°C | 5–10 |
| Red / chewings fescuelikely yours | 8–10°C | 10–14 |
| Tall fescue | 10–12°C | 10–14 |
| Browntop bentColonial bentgrass | 10–12°C | 14–21 |
| Smooth-stalked meadow grassKentucky bluegrass | 12–13°C | 14–28 |
Feeding
Why timing decides whether a feed does anything at all.
Coming in the app
Grass takes up nitrogen when it is growing. Feed a lawn that has stopped and most of it washes past the roots — which is why timing beats product choice.
Right now this lawn is growing well enough to use a feed.
The app will work out the actual feeding windows for your lawn — along with weed control, scarifying and moss treatment — and tell you when they open without you having to check.
Bolton, England in detail
Soil temperature at 6cm in Bolton, England is currently 15.9°C, and falling about 3.7°C over the next 10 days. That depth matters because it is where grass seed sits and where roots start working, and it lags air temperature by days — which is why a warm afternoon here tells you very little on its own.
Lawns in this area are typically perennial ryegrass with fescue, which is what most lawns round here are sown with. That blend needs the soil to hold above 9°C before seed germinates reliably. Seeding conditions are open — soil is 15.9°C at 6cm and holding above 9°C.
7 of the next 10 days are good mowing days. The other 3 are held back by wet grass or soft ground. The best weekend slot right now is Sunday 3pm–8pm, on the basis that ground soft — 56mm rain over the last week.
The next recommended window in Bolton opens at 3pm on Sunday 6 September, and holds while conditions stay put. Underfoot, the ground reads as saturated after 61mm rain over the last week.
Forecast from Open-Meteo, refreshed hourly. Soil temperature is modelled, not measured — how that works and where the thresholds come from.