Newbie - Turf / Soil advice

Hi,

Complete newbie to gardening. Bought first house with a garden last year, need to sort the garden out this year. Could people suggest best approach to this one please? Pictures from lat year, its a lot flatter currently but imagine it will start growing soon.

I'm planning on new fence all round initially, probably a border of plants and trees etc.

Main area I'm unsure of is what do I need to do with current lawn / weeds? Do I need to cut a layer off, if so does that just get disposed of or does it go back into the soil? Do I need to kill off weeds with a weed killer?

With the soil underneath what needs to happen to that, people say turn it over a lot - what's best way of doing that? and add topsoil? If so how much etc.?

All help much appreciated.

Thanks

Mark

 

Welcome Mark.

With the amount of growth I'd be inclined to strim the whole lot down. With Spring and new growth starting I'd leave it for a few weeks after to see how much grass if any you have there. If it's nearly all weeds you have choices. A systemic or glyphosate based weed killer will kill it all off including roots. Be careful with Glyphosate it kills most things it touches and needs to be used carefully avoiding windy days. Or you could rotovate it back in, the problem here is that any roots left in will eventually re-shoot. There will also be seeds laying dormant in the ground which ever way you choose and they would have to be dealt with at a later point.

Once it's cleared, assuming you want lawn, the choice is then seed or turf. Turf is much quicker but I think seeding gives a better lawn. The soil may already be in good condition having laid fallow for a while. So depending on your type of soil, clay, sandy etc. you may need to give it a boost with compost possibly.

I suggest you make a start and when it's cleared post again here and we'll take the process further.