How do I start my lawn again?

rhelm · September 2022

There's a large patch of land out the back of our house that I'd like to turn into a decent-ish lawn. There's some grass but loads of dandelions, moss and plantain. The soil is heavy clay and stoney and it's never been looked after. It's too much too dig or weed it by hand (about 100m sq) and grass seeds won't take to the compacted clay. Because of all this I'm thinking of starting agin - machine-rotivating in some organic matter and re-seeding. But how do I get rid of all the weeds first? Will landscaping fabric over the winter do it (before rotivating in spring) or do I need to kill off all the weeds before putting fabric down? or is there some other way that would be better?! Thank you!

JennyJ · September 2022

The best way is to dig out all the weed roots but if you can't do that, you could use systemic weedkiller like glyphosate. It's quite expensive for a large area, and the weeds need to be actively growing for a while after it's applied to take it down into the roots, so don't leave it much longer, or just mow/strim off the weeds for now and treat in spring when they're growing again. And choose a still day, because any spray drift will kill or at least damage plants that you (or your neighbours) want to keep. Don't rotivate living weed roots - you'll just break the roots into little bits which will all grow into new plants.

Loxley · September 2022

Agree with the above but you could also glyphosate any flush of regrowth you get this autumn, and then again in spring to get any regrowth. Landscape fabric over winter won't do the job IMO.

Fairygirl · September 2022

I agree. Unless you have another 99 people to help you manually remove them in one go [10 m sq each

] the best solution is a good weedkiller - applied enough times to get a result. Then go from there with the lawn prep- and that will be spring. Too late now to rely on one application being enough, as @Loxley says.
Or mow, as per @JennyJ's description, and do that all in spring.

Certainly don't rotovate - that's a recipe for disaster, as already said

bédé · September 2022

Depends what you mean by "decent-ish" , and "never been looked after".

Do top it with good soil/compost but don't rotavate. If you mow twice a week, like the National Trust do, the grasses will steadily improve and the weeds reduce, whilst no flowers will be produced and the "lawn" will alwys look green and trim.

After about 2 years review, and selectively dig out or spray with lawn weedkiller key offenders.

How do I start my lawn again?

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