Digging up "lawn" and starting again?

[geordieminx]

Our garden is really uneven, running higher at the back down to the house, and also higher at one side than the other.

We also have a piece of waste land about 4mx2m that is is over grown.

Was thinking about hiring a rotavator, and churning up the whole lot, trying to even it out a bit (will need to buy 3t of topsoil too), and then planting grass seed and starting again.

I have no idea whether this is a good/bad idea, I'm just sick of the garden the way it is.

Will I need to manually dig up grass and get rid or can I just turn It over with the rotavator?

How long will it take for the grass seed to grow so we have a reasonable lawn?

Is now about the right time of year to be doing it?

If anyone could point me in the right direction I would be so grateful.

Many thanks

[dreamingofsun]

you are suppossed to put seed down in the autumn. you have to dig and bash it into fine particles and then level it all out and then walk all over it so you get rid of any air pockets. it is really hard work and the tiny area i did looks awful as i still didn't get it level. so allow lots of time and good luck. and mkae sure you keep the see watered and watch out for birds - can you tell i didn't enjoy this!!

[geordieminx]

Thanks

((((( wonders how much it would be to get a man in..... ))))

[Freezingmyarseoff]

Oh DreamingI didn't want to hear how much hard work it is to prepare the ground. We had building work last year and our lawn was pretty much trashed. We thought about seeding it but would actually like to have some grass we can walk on over the summer so wondered about turfing it instead.
I just had a quote for someone to lay turfing and it's so I wondered if I might do it myself. Am beginning to wonder if that's a bit crazy as it's about 100sqm.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

We did it ourselves but had the advantage that (a) the ground was already reasonably flat (and we weren't aiming for croquet lawn perfection) and (b) the lawn is quite small so the cost of the turf was bearable. If it's a choice, I think buying turf over seed is better VFM than getting a gardener in.

[dreamingofsun]

personally i'm going for stone - a patio - but then its in the shade where i can't get the grass to grow, under a tree. i'm sure you will do better than me