Fixing my uneven scratty lawn

[superoz]

We have got a large garden which is mostly grass.

I can’t really describe it as a lawn as it’s so uneven, after having an extension done a few years ago there’s been builders machinery all over it, and we suspect the previous occupants had a pond once upon a time as there’s a big dip in the middle. The soil is clay so mostly rock hard in dry weather. There are also a lot of weeds and a patch of ground elder at the bottom of the garden.

I would really like to sort it out, and was looking to rotavate to level everything out and reseed. But I think we need to get rid of the weeds first. Do I just go nuclear and use weed killer?

We will be doing this ourselves so on a budget, and not that knowledgeable so any advice on how we tackle this would be great!

Bumping.

Could anyone help at all, pretty please?

We are doing exactly this at the moment. We are digging it out by hand over several weeks - it’s fairly arduous work but like you I didn’t want to rotavate immediately because of all the ground elder and bindweed roots - I figured that would just spread them all over the garden. I also didn’t want to use weed killer for environmental reasons (they’re dreadful for bees and other insects). It’s taken us at least one weekend day for the last 5 weeks and it’s now nearly done.

The next stage will be to level out the dips and then re-turf. I don’t think I can face using seed (last time the birds ate most of it) so I will probably buy rolls of turf instead.

Rotovate and re turf.
Does it need drains putting in before you do that ?

Your plan seems sound.

If I had a lawn like this, I would want to a) remove any problem perennial weeds first, especially that damn ground elder; b) rotovate the ground and level it, pulling out any big chunks like bricks, stones, big roots, glass etc, then c) buy turf to lay on it. I know seed is a lot cheaper when you're on a budget, but a large area will be a faff to seed and rake over, then cover so birds don't eat all the seed...

Our clay soil is so bad we had to install land drains in our garden, as it regularly flooded in winter when the ground was saturated. It was worth doing and has made a massive difference. (We got a landscape company to do our work though, it's too big a job for us to do now!)

Thanks for the replies!

It looks like we need to get digging, especially the ground elder as it’s near to some cherry laurel tree roots so we definitely wouldn’t be using weed killer in that area.

Our garden doesn’t seem to get waterlogged in wet weather, I think there is a soakaway already in the ground and we have big trees which stop that from happening.

Hmmm yes we do have a lot of birds in the garden, so maybe turf is a better option.

OP if you're on Facebook there are a lot of groups on lawn renovation where there are dozens of people willing to give you (conflicting) advice on what to do. Lots of the contributors either work for lawn franchises or are grounds-people

If you are careful with weed killer and just get the leaves of your weed then surrounding plants are ok. I’ve found. Obviously better if you can get them out manually.

Our lawn isn’t great. We’ve been filling dips and reseeding and then are having green thumb do a ‘feed and weed’. We have tried to do this in the past and not managed to apply it evenly!