Replacing my lawn - help please

Hi, I am not a gardener as such but my lawn in my back garden is a mess and I would like to do something about it. There are many weeds, moss and clover in the lawn. Some parts of the lawn are very shady and others get a lot of sun and tend to be very dry.
The lawn also has a number of high areas as well as low points. The garden has no slope to it.
I would like to get it level, clear of weeds and moss and have a lawn that looks nice and will withstand being walked on although I don't have young children or pets so it won't be used for football etc.
I have recently laid blocks around the edge so now I am ready to take up the old lawn and start again. I should mention also that the lawn that is currently down seems to have some kind of nylon (or similar) mesh like material under it. I've been told that this is because it was such cheap turf that was used but I don't know if that's true.
I was thinking I would hire a turf cutter and take up the old lawn but then I thought maybe I should just rotorvate it.
I am open to either turfing or laying seed but I would need some help on choice of turf/seed and also whether it's too late in the year for seed now.
Could anybody please offer some advice, it would be much appreciated.

 

Welcome to GC Kevin. First you have to make a decision about turf or seed. If you use seed it will take up to three months to establish properly, turf will take a few weeks to knit itself together and it's possible to do both at this time of year, but best to get underway very soon if you're using seed. Seed will need a minimum temperature of approx. 53F or 11C to germinate and hopefully stay frost free while it starts to grow and establish. It takes up to two weeks to show. A number of members on GC prefer seed as it gives a better finish.

It would be better to skim off the turf which will remove many weeds too and rotovate the soil below, this will ease compaction and let air into the soil. When that is done the soil can be levelled, either using the back of a rake or dragging something across it like a ladder on it's edge. Finish by raking the soil so that it disperses any lumps. If your soil is clay it would be best to dig in some sand or grit to help keep the soil open and aid growth. If your soil is sandy, topsoil is a better option.

Once the preparation is done turf or seed can be laid, the turves should be offset as if you were building a brick wall. With seed the instructions on how much to use will be on the packaging. This can be raked gently into the soil, it's always good to put down a little extra as birds etc. might steal some. After seeding, walk in a shuffle gently over the area to firm down. With both seed and turf the lawn must not be allowed to dry out. Water every day unless it rains, again until it is established. When mowing after seeding use a high cut just to take the top off (a shorter cut will tear out the grass) over the first few weeks but at this time of year growth is slowing down anyway. The lawn should establish itself over the winter months and be ready for it's first feed next spring.

You may have weeds showing through as time passes, unfortunately seeds would have been laying dormant in the ground ready to germinate, every gardeners nightmare! It would be best either to dig those out carefully or leave it until next year when you can use a lawn weed killer.

There are different types of grass seed and that includes seed for shady areas, but that really is only necessary if your present lawn isn't growing at all in those areas, other than that I would suggest a general purpose seed. Good luck!

 

Much easier to renovate a lawn, than to start over .... It needs to be in really dreadful state to warrant digging it up and starting over. There is a lot of work in preparing a new lawn (same prep. whether Turf or Seed, so no short cuts I'm afraid), and considerable expense, plus you have no lawn at all whilst that is going on, and the lawn is then either germinating or bedding-in (for turf), so if you need to be able to walk on it (hang out the washing, or somewhere for the dogs / kids to run about) then that is doubly hard if you go down the "replace"

Some photographs would help

 

Sheal and Kristen thank you both for your replies.
The main reason I was thinking about a complete replacement was because there are some big areas of the lawn that are too high and need to be lowered. If it was just low spots it wouldn't be so bad as I could raise with sand/compost and overseed but actually lowering the level seems more tricky.
If I was to skim off the turf should I treat the lawn first to kill off the weeds and moss etc?
Also I'm glad you mentioned about birds eating the seed as my garden backs onto an arboretum and we do have an awful lot of birds and other wildlife around us which I meant to mention in my first post. I will try to add some photos later today.

 

I would raise and lower the same way (i.e. not fill in hollows and overseed). I would cut and H-shaped slit, peel back the turf in the two U-shaped halves, remove or add soil, and then replace and tramp down the turf. Once the whole thing is level-ish to within an inch or so (you might have to wait a season for it to settle), I would then dress with top-soil / sand mixture, to get it even more level, and then overseed.

I would do that basic levelling this Autumn, and also aerate thoroughly (which should reduce the moss over winter). I would treat any moss, during the winter, with Iron sulphate - i.e. kill it before it gets a hold. It might be sufficiently settled by the spring to do the top dressing to get nicely level, and overseed, but I think that job is better done in Autumn (the seed has all winter to establish after germinating, whereas in spring it is immediately in competition with everything else that is growing). It would also give you next year to get control of the weeds.

I would treat with weed & feed in the spring to sort out the weeds. When the weed infestation is heavy I think that Weed & Feed is cost effective, once the weeds become fewer then I think that spraying them with a selective lawn weedkiller, and using plain law fertiliser, is much cheaper.

No harm in spraying the weeds now, but you won't get as good a kill as in the spring, and important not to use Weed and Feed at this time of the year. If you wind up with a lot of patches, after killing the weeds this autumn, then I would overseed those.

 

Thanks again for the advice. I think I've made up my mind to seed the lawn rather than turf as I am in no rush to get it done, next spring would be fine.
I have added some photos now and I hope you can see from them the problem I have with the high areas. I am planning to bring the lawn down level with the patio blocks. About 50% of the lawn (overall size is about 27 feet by about 24 feet) is high and in some places by about 5-6 inches high. If I am to use the H slit method what size H's would I use if that makes sense. Sorry if these sound dumb questions but we are talking some big areas to take soil away from.
Alternatively with the amount I have got to lower is the skim and rotorvate more efficient?
I left the bucket in the one picture to try to offer some perspective of the height if the current lawn in relation to the patio. Hope these help. Thanks again.

 

Seed would be much better done in the Autumn - it will germinate whilst the weeds are shutting up shop for the winter, so will have the whole winter to get established, without weed competition. It is also likely to need very little supplemental watering next year (unless we have a drought). Spring sown has immediate competition from weeds and will probably need watering (more or less) all summer.

The H-slits need to be the size of the hump, or hollow, that you are tying to fix / level. So will vary in size. This is not a solution to use if you want to re-seed the area from scratch, only if you want to "repair/improve" the existing lawn.

If you want to seed it then skimming off the old turf is not a good starting point IMHO. It contains the most fertile top inch or two of your soil, and leaves you with thinner topsoil (unless you are blessed with very fertile soil!)

Kill the existing grass using Glyphosate based weedkiller. Do not get it on anything that you don't want to kill! After two weeks you will be able to see any weeds that you missed, or are not dead, repeat application on those bits. Start this immediately, as Glyphosate only works on actively growing plants, so the longer you leave it into Autumn the less effective it will be.

Dig the whole patch. Rotavating it is fine, but if the ground is compacted it is doubtful that the rotavator will "dig" into it. Hire a self-powered cultivator instead - this uses engine power to both turn the digging tines, but also to drive the wheels (whereas with a rotavator you remove the wheels when you have pushed it to the plot, and then the motor just drives the digging tines; this type will just bounce off hard ground). One option is to dig, which roughly breaks out the ground, and then use a rotavator/cultivator to get a fine tilth.

Incorporate some organic material at this time. If the drainage is dreadful (you routinely get standing water after heavy rain that does not clear in 30 minutes or so, particularly if it does not clear for hours-or-days!) then now would be a really good time to put some French/land drains in (its not difficult to do, and much easier when the whole plot is being dug up anyway!)

Level the ground. Drag a ladder with a rope tied to the rungs at each end, or a pallet or similar, both left-to-right and front-to-back. This will drag loose soil from the humps into the hollows. If it skates across the surface add some weights on it until it pulls a couple of CM of dirt in front of it.

Once it is "smooth level" then tread it all down. Do this when it is bone dry. First foot down, second foot with heel in the instep of the first. Shuffle forwards half-a-step at a time. This is to compress the soil, so it does not sink later on. Because this is done when the soil is dry it does not compact the soil such that the drainage is compromised.

Rake (using a fixed tine rake, rather than a spring tine one) back and forth to get a fine tilth, and to get it all nice and smooth. Remove any stones.

Apply grass seed. Choose the mix suitable for the purpose of your lawn - anything from Bowling Green (which I don't recommend, needs a huge amount of faff to look after it) to hard wearing kids kickabout pitch. There are good general-purpose lawns seeds available which will look nice, not need lots of looking after, and be reasonably hard wearing. Use a shady-grass mix in any areas that have significant shade. The choice of grass seed mix (and price!) is a huge advantage compared to laying turf (although note that the soil preparation to this point is identical, whether you lay turf or sow seed, so there are no short cuts with turf).

Get a seed distributor (you wheel it along, the seed drops out of the bottom at a controlled rate). Split a large compost bag in half, or use a tarpaulin, and wheel the grass seed dispenser over it for an exactly measured length (e.g. 1M). Repeat carefully multiple times - say 10x. Tip the grass seed, which is now lying on the bag, into your kitchen scales and work out how much you applied (per sq.m.) and then work out how many passes you need to make to get the right amount of seed down. Hopefully it is at least 4 ... my cheapy seeder needs 16 passes, which is a complete pain and is at the other end of the spectrum!

For 2 passes do one pass Left-to-right and a second set front-to-back - that way any gaps that you miss going one way will be covered by the other.

For 4 passes do the same, but for the right-to-left (and obviously left-to-right for the next "row" on the way back) overlap the previous by 50%

Water the grass seed, with a hose & sprinkler immediately. Don't wait for rain to start the process - you want it to start NOW not when it rains in a few weeks time!

Don't walk on it until it is well established (a month at least). If you need to attend to it stand on boards so your weight is spread. if you need a "path" then put planks down, but move them regularly (roll the planks over once to the right, for example) otherwise they will kill the grass seed underneath as it won't get any light.

You might need to put something over the plot to stop the birds eating the grass seed - I never think they eat enough seed to be a problem, but it depends if you get 1,000 pigeons using your new lawn as a feeding station!

 

Hi again Kristen, apologies but despite my best efforts I just couldn't get the photo's to upload.
I really appreciate the time you've gone to in detailing the steps I need to take. I will make a start on it this week and hopefully by spring summer I'll have a lawn to be proud of.

Thank you

 

Just so long as you are aware how much effort is involved in replace, rather than repair

 

Hopping on to this thread to ask a question about grass.

Is there any type of grass that just stays short and therefore does not need mowing or cutting back?

 

Wishful thinking grass?

Good quality grass seed doesn't grow a huge amount. It will still need cutting once a week, but you won't get huge amounts off it (assuming you collect the clippings, if you don't then you won't be left with lots lying around on the lawn).

Rough grass can produce a lot of growth, and clippings, when it is growing strongly (usually Spring and Autumn, unless it is very dry)

If you want a low maintenance lawn how about Astroturf? Good ones of those look really good.

 

Astroturf - is that the stuff that does you in when you play football on it?

A neighbour has something called 'As Good As Grass ' - not cheap though.

Might have a ponder.

 

@Sheal & @Kristen

Very full and informative posts: those replies would have taken a bit of time to put out, thank you!

 

Thank you "M"