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Advice needed laying a lawn.

reesbarnesreesbarnes Posts: 5
in Garden design
Hello, it would be wonderful if I could get some advice. I am new to both gardening and forums so I apolgise if this post is something asked often or in the wrong place.

I moved into our house last year and whilst the inside was renovated, the back garden took a back seat.

The garden was completely over grown when the property was brought, the lawn was mostly weeds. So I have mowed and trimmed all back. I dug up a concrete raised lawn bed in the far left corner and there was an old patio buried next to it about a foot down so that came up.

In the photo attached you can see it's a small square garden roughly 6 metres by 12 metres.

I have soaked the garden in Glyphoaste to kill it all in a bid to rid the old before the new.


So what I need in advice is this. I intend to lay a new lawn from seed. This is my plan, remove dead lawn, dig down around 2 feet with fork and turn over. Leave and see if any growth comes through (2 weeks), glyphosate or dig out. Break the soil down with a rake removing any stones, do I need a top soil after this and what would be my next course of action.  That could all be wrong so any and all advice is welcome I will update through the course of the project.

Thankyou in advance.

Posts

  • reesbarnesreesbarnes Posts: 5

  • DampGardenManDampGardenMan Posts: 1,054
    Which way does your garden face and how much sun will the lawn get? What type of soil do you have? Is the drainage any good?

    You might struggle to get a good lawn going as it looks like it will be pretty shaded by those fences.
  • reesbarnesreesbarnes Posts: 5
    The garden is south south easterly facing (I think) the garden gets plenty of sun, that photo was taken at about 11am.

    The garden is very slightly sloped away from the house I haven't had or seen any issues with water sitting on the grass.

    I don't know the answer to the soil type. I guess this is something i will need to find out?
  • DampGardenManDampGardenMan Posts: 1,054
    reesbarnes said:
    I don't know the answer to the soil type. I guess this is something i will need to find out?
    As long as it's not a wet horrid "clay", then you should be OK, all other things being equal. But the lawn experts on this forum will be able to advise better than I can.
  • reesbarnesreesbarnes Posts: 5
    No it's most definitely not clay I'd say at a guess it's probably chalky having just googled the types of soil.
  • StevedaylillyStevedaylilly Posts: 1,102
    As you lawn it’s pooling with water then it’s possibly on good loamy soil. I would probably go for turf as opposed to seeding if you are going to create planting boarders to your garden as the lawn area will be reduced. There would be no reason to dig up 2 foot of soil as drainage doesn’t seem to be a problem 
    Remove the existing lawn by digging up about 2” to 3”. Rake it over to even out and remove large stones. Once your satisfied the ground is adequately level, then, if you decide to have boarders then you could go for a curved lawn to give more areas for planting out plants and shrubs to give all round interest to the garden 

  • reesbarnesreesbarnes Posts: 5
    The garden is going to be purely a lawn with some potted plants and some imaginative decoration to hide the neighbours concrete fence kick boards.. thats great news Steve so just dig down and dig out the current growth, level and get some turf lay it. Is it that simple??
  • StevedaylillyStevedaylilly Posts: 1,102
    As you appear to have a good free drawing soil and very fortunate, yes. The main thing is preparing the soil that the new turf is to be laid on. Rake it and walk over it to consolidate the soil. Do this until you have, in gardening terms is a “fine tilth” that is about a 30mm fine soil. To achieve this you will need to rake and remove stones from the surface as well as attempting to level the soil If you do lay turf down then lay in in a stretcher course, as in brickwork, where no ends of the turf are imediately over or under each other. I always tuck in the end of the turf in to the next one so that they grow in to each other 
    After that water it well in and so it so it does not dry out and do not walk on it for a week or 2 
    Hope your plans work out 
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