Help with laying grass

[Trojanhorse]

I was hoping to pick peoples brains who may have done this before!

I have finally reclaimed my garden (previous owner in a home etc) at the bottom of the garden I found a gravel path but all clogged up with earth etc. So I bagged the gravel and I am now left with a long 'ditch' 6''0 across and about one breaze block high.

I have brought in soil to fill the ditch and will grass over but should I rotervate the rest of the grass and start the whole garden again with grass seed or just see the new soil?

The current grass is very poor as had been neglected etc for years.

Thoughts or advice please!

[grenfell]

With the weather we had last year there's a lot of lawns looking " very poor" . I have a gardening round so see quite a few. Some are still bare in patches and others have significant areas of moss which doesn't seem to have been afffected by the heatwaves. It's predicted that summers may be repeated like that and we have to put up with brown lawns as hosepipe bans become more common and it makes me wonder whether spending much on a lawn is really worth it.
Whether to rotovate or not ? I don't feel there's a definate answer to that one . I've seen some rotovated , reseeded or turfed and they look pretty good. I've also seen some sacrified and dressed with fine soil and seed and they look decent enough. Some don't like to rotovate on the grounds that it chops up worms and spreads weed seeds although I do feel that it can be used to mix in organic matter at the same time . Swings and roundabouts.
Of course on a prepping forum perhaps you should be asking what veg to plant after you've ripped out the old lawn.

[Yorkshire Andy]

Spray the grass and weeds with weedol few days later scatter sulphate of iron and water well (this kills the old grass and weeds / moss

Leave a week or so then


Rotorvate the lot of drainage is poor add sharp sand and fine grit whilst you go..... Add some food too eg chicken manure pellets

Roller it well and level. Water well to settle

Leave the drain for a day

Take the grass seed mix with compost and scatter on well take into the soil lightly

Roll again water without flooding it and leave it just keep it from drying out


Water regularly and keep off it till the grass is 3" or more then trim about 1/2" off it regularly till it thickens up then slowly lower the cut week by week to about 1 1/2

[Yorkshire Andy]

Google Canadian grass it's expensive but very hard wearing

[Trojanhorse]

Thank you for your thoughts!

You are right about the veggies I was thinking to sort out the grass first and the levels- its a gentle slope currently.

Once I know what I have to play with put a green house and raised beds in

Thank you

[grenfell]

Funny how things go but today I saw two of my customers with problem lawns. I'm not sure if it's a nationwide company or just local but around here there is a company called Green Thumb who specialise in lawn care , well treatments and the like rather than the mowing side anyway. Both of these customers have had Green Thumb in to quote for getting their lawns back into shape. The quote for one lawn of around 60m2 says to remove exsisting turf be it dead or still clinging to life , prepare the ground and reseed and comes in at a little shy of a grand. The other lawn is slightly smaller and was £800 ish . Both have said that's not going to happen at that price and have started to reseed themselves. So far they are both showing signs of improvement , the one more than the other.
Last year I had another customer who's lawn was attacked by beetle larvae . They really did make a mess off the lawn and I ended up skimming what was left of the turf and disposing of it and the beetles with it.
The only thing I would add is probably down to personal choice but myself I wouldn't use the weedol as I only use weedkillers as a last resort . I'd skim off any problem areas and place it upside down to rot away and dig out any weeds or at least as many as possible.

[Trojanhorse]

Update

Grass is now very dead and first rotervation has taken place.

Need to rake out more of the dead grass and then rake earth

Its looking promising!