Lawn levelling advice please

[donquixotedelamancha]

Our back lawn is a very uneven swamp. Over summer I'm going to lay a land drain to (hopefully) deal with the waterlogging and was planning to level and relay with turf.

I was wondering whether I can get away with just topping up the dips with sand and then overseeding?

All thoughts welcome.

I have spent an inordinate amount of time watching people on YouTube doing this sort of thing. I think you probably can, but maybe use a mixture of sand and topsoil rather than just soil in the dippiest dips? And then overseed it all so it doesn't look patchy.

Rather than just sand, I meant.

you can make up a top-dressing, a mixture of grit, sifted soil, and peat or sifted compost. There is a home-made tool called a lute that drags it across the humps and into the hollows to make it flat. Though I think I would dig it over and rake it level a few times first. That way you can dig the humps down a bit and rake it into the hollows. If you dig it over and break it up it will rake fairly easily until it settles down again or gets wet.

I have only gardened on clay soils, which the grit or lawn sand improves. If you were on gritty or sandy soil I suppose you would be looking to add heavy soil or clay instead.

It will carry on settling for around a year IME so you will be top-dressing it for that long.

DH did this a couple of years back and like PigletJohn says, he’s constantly topping it up and reseeding.

Thanks to all for your advice.