Killing entire lawn and weeds - recommended ways?

Hello,

I'm in the process of doing a hard reset on my back garden and I'm approaching the point of being ready to kill off the existing lawn and all the weeds and moss which have taken up residence.

Currently, I'm thinking of covering the entire patch in thick black tarp for a few months. My understanding is this will slowly kill off everything underneath it.

Would you recommend a different method?

 

weed killer another option and faster

 

Getting some kind of rotavator and grinding all the grass and roots - sifting, moving to composter or away then. Applying the layer of new top soil and then reseeding or laying turf.
I don't like the idea of applying weedkillers in back gardens. This is so tiny area, so close to the house, where you spend so much time (ok, maybe, not all people, but crazy gardeners definately ) . So I would go for mechanical way.

 

Think an equally important question is what are you intending to do with that area instead of grass ?

How big an area are you talking about ? pics or plans of the area would be of help /interest.

 

Beware of rotavating if the reason you're clearing it out is that it's full of weeds. Especially if those weeds are stuff like bindweed, dandelions, nettles, buttercups, etc.. All that does is spread cut-up bits of root around, which all sprout into hundreds more weeds than you previously had.

It can work though. After you've loosened the soil up, you need to dig over every inch with a spade, and run every piece of soil through your fingers to pick out every last piece of root. It's a slow process, and I know because that's what I do for getting beds back in service. It does work extremely well too. But if your lawn is any reasonable size, you'll need a lot of time on your hands.

If you don't have the time to pick over every grain of soil though, hit the weedkiller.

 

Use Weedol, doesn’t harm the soil only green tissue. Then rotivate, then leave for a week or two for new weed seeds to germinate then hoe off, fresh top soil if needed,light raking to level,consolidate, level again before re seeding or turfing.

 

One note too about covering it. Some weeds just keep going regardless. They'll pop up shoots to the surface every so often, but if they don't find light then it doesn't stop them keeping on spreading. Bindweed is particularly evil that way. And some things like brambles are quite happy to spread along the surface under the plastic, which is frustrating when you find all you've been doing is giving them a nice cozy home. If you've only got the normal lawn weeds then you're probably good, but for some things you just have to do a Ripley and nuke the site from orbit.

 

I intend to level the ground (there's a large patch which was the foundation of a green house I've dug up and removed) and then reseed the whole thing anew with grass.

 

Thanks folks. I'm going to hold off for a while (I might appreciate having SOME grass while we ride out isolations and such).