How do I improve my weed infested lawn?

[fixingmylife]

Hello - Just as the title says, my lawn is practically all dandelions and the grass that is left has areas where it is course and doesn't look good. Do I just need to weed out all the dandelions and feed it? Forgive me for asking such an ignorant question, but I would really like a nice lawn in my garden.

Watching with interest as mine is exactly the same but with masses of giant dock leaves.

Leave them, biodiversity in lawns is in

We used to have green thumb treatments 4 times a year… then we stopped in October as the price went up. It wasn’t that much but I decided we didn’t need it. Looking at my lawn at the weekend I’ve realised we do need it and I’ve emailed and booked for them to come back. I thoroughly recommend them. Ours is a standard lawn for a 4 bed family home and the cost is £28 x4 times a year.

Dandelions, clumps of daisies, creeping buttercup and ragwort in mine. I don’t want to weed & feed because of the bees. I did spend hours digging loads out the other year, it resulted in huge patches of bare Earth there were so many. I didn’t keep it up so now it’s covered again.

I would weed out the dandelions, sprinkle it all with weed+feed, then fill in all the gaps with grass seed. You can also aerate the lawn by spiking it, but unless it's a small area, I would probably get too bored...

Check the instructions on weed+feed - I think you're meant to wait a couple of days after mowing, and then water it I a day or two after spreading it if it hasn't rained. The lawn will look far worse before it gets better.

Alternatively, you can returf it all, but that will be more expensive.

Mine's the same. It's a mess! I've been weeding it recently but leaving in the daisies for the bees.

Eat the dandelions

Personally I would (and have) leave all the extras in the lawn - I like the way it looks and the different wildlife it encourages.

However, if you want rid of them then you manually dig them out, fill any hole left behind with some sandy soil and sprinkle some grass seed on it. Keep the seed moist for 2 weeks until it starts to grow.

This is best done at the start of the year before the weeds have had chance to set seed - which scatters and starts new plants elsewhere in the lawn. You can do it now but be aware you are likely to have seed already that will germinate and grow in the next few months, into next spring - so will have to do a bit of a mop up later this year and early next (ish) to catch everything.

Thank you for the useful responses and advice.

I'd get rid of as many of the large weeds as possible, use a lawn patch repair kit for the bare earth areas, following the pack instructions (I think they usually contain seed and fertiliser) and mow more frequently.

Daisies in a lawn are lovely though, so I'd leave them.

Mowing it twice a week in the growing season will help a lot with this. Grass likes being mown, weeds don't.

Why is everyone so keen to get rid of flowers like buttercups, daisies, dandelions? Let them flower - now is their season, and mow later when they are over - though daisies carry on, but they are lovely. Your flower filled lawn will be good for wildlife, especially bees and other insects that in turn attract birds. I don't understand why anyone would give that up in favour of a sterile grass monoculture.

Mow / aerate & scarify / feed / scatter worm casts (they are seed beds for weeds).

Why is everyone so keen to get rid of flowers
Because it's a lawn, not a flower bed. HTH

Firstly cut it short and then weed put as many of the large dandelions and other large weeds as you can. Backfill any big holes with topsoil.

Do this now while we still have damp soil after rain.

Next on a dry day use a lawn weed and feed granular treatment - Miracle Gro 4 in 1 is great. Follow the instructions.

A few weeks later, rake out any thatch/ dead moss. Easiest to do this with an electric lawn rake.

Keep it regularly mowed so any weeds left son't set seed.

Patch with a fast growing seed mixed with top soil. Overseed the whole lot if needed.

Do an Autumn and Spring treatment every year.

Plenty of areas in my garden for that, I want my lawn to a lawn.

I don't mind daisies and violets. I don't want dock and big things like that. Nor the acres of moss...

I don't understand why anyone would give that up in favour of a sterile grass monoculture. Because I want sterile grass for the front lawn, nothing to give up.