Dare I DIY my lawn? <wibble>

[Erebus]

It's about 8m x 4.5m, more or less oblong. Suburban backgarden, surrounded on 3 sides by a strip of garden (and 6' fences) and on the other, a paved patio.

It undulates, rather! Though the house is 15 years old, I see from asking old neighbours and GoogleEarth that parts of teh lawn were one flower beds and paths. The whole lot has been turfed over but inevitably, bits stand higher than the 'baseline' of the paved patio, some dip.

I am wondering whether to bite the bullet and hire this turf cutter, take the lot up, skim the topsoil level, sand/new top soil it, the relay the turf on top. Then water like crazy. The existing grass is 'OK' for teh most part though the low lying stuff is mossy; and of course isn't necessarily of the same vaiety as the rest of it having been laid at different times.

The only good reason for relaying from scratch is to get all the grass variety the same. Which might be a good idea on such a small area.

Do I dare (DH &I)? Or is it a mammoth job I'll bitterly regret starting??

I plan on making it all a bit more interesting with a cobbled, wavy 'edge' around it so I won't just end up with another' flatter oblong!

What do you think?

[Floralnomad]

We have done it on probably a larger area but my husband is very 'handy ' and does all our DIY and repairs and I'm pretty good at 'labouring' . So I suppose it depends how hands on you are . Turfing is quite simple IME.

[yomellamoHelly]

Think I'd cost out buying some new turf in your position. Then I'd hire a rotavator www.hss.com/g/62516/Power-Digger-Rotavator-.html and level, compact, level ..... from that base line. Will be a hell of a lot of work.
That said our garden is 7.5 x 22 m and have just started same process. (Childcare this week which is excellent, but am physically done in after just a day and a half. In reality I expect it to take all summer for me, maybe longer) Am trying to keep costs as low as possible.

[memphis83]

A turf cutter is very easy to use and will lift it very quickly. I reckon you could do it yourself. There are lots of tips online on laying turf and te company that you would get turf from and hire cutter from will have lots of tips too.

[nipersvest]

we had our grass turfed in october. they didn't remove the existing grass, just rotavated it all, raked it flat and laid the turf. they didn't roller the earth before turfing as i though they would because if the soil underneath is too compacted, the turf won't be able to create a decent root system. after watching them do it, i'd say it's straight forward to do once you know what you're doing, but it's very physically demanding, the rotavator is hard to control. yours is a small enough garden so i'd be tempted to give it a go. don't walk on it for at least a couple of weeks once it's done, and at this time of year, it'll need watering a lot (lift the turf at the edge and make sure it's soaked right through to the soil underneath.

[nipersvest]

also forgot to say, rather than lifting the existing lawn, before rotavating it, they came and sprayed it with weed killer a few days beforehand.

[Erebus]

OK, need to give this some thought, don't I? Do I kill the existing mismatched lawn and rotovate it up, then lay fresh turf? Or turf-cut the existing lawn and raise/lower it?!

[linspins]

Definitely use fresh turf or seed, don't relay your old stuff, it will never look as good as you need it to for all the effort you will have put in. Fresh will root nicely, look more uniform, be easy to lay etc.

[Rhubarbgarden]

I did this myself a few years ago. I didn't hire a turf cutter though, I did it the old fashioned way with a half moon and spade. Then I rotavated it, raked it level, rolled it and seeded it. It was hard work but do-able. And the resulting lawn was fab.

[jamtoast12]

We just done our garden and its fairly big. Hired a rotavatar for £15 for the day and full turf cost £150 if you shop around. The whole thing was done by dh and his dad in two days. No big deal at all.