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My back garden is very lumpy with patchy grass, I've tried re-seeding areas of it, but it's never really worked.
If I was to get several tonnes of top soil delivered and then spread about to flatten the garden out, could I reseed it or maybe turf it?
Would the grass I've covered up with the top soil die off? Or is it likely to grow back through?
If it grows back through, it doesn't matter, it's just moar grass!
Depends on how much topsoil you cover the old grass with? Sure you can flatten it out and turf over the old but IMHO you'd be better off rotavating it then levelling it out and then laying new turf.
Don't bother until next year, temperatures are dropping and most grasses won't germinate and take properly.
Do it around April, put the effort in to prepare the seed bed, water as required and it will grow.
If you want turf it you will still want to prep the ground first
What did you do when you reseeded the lawn? You have to put top soil over the grass seeds or they won’t grow. Did you check the ph of the earth? You may need to put lime on the lawn. If you go down the roll turf root, as someone already said, preparation is the key. For our garden we had 30 tonnes of top soil delivered and I distributed it around the garden and then hired a vibratory plate compactor to make sure all the soil was hardened down. Once the prep was done the laying of the turf was relatively easy.
Don’t bother until next year, temperatures are dropping and most grasses won’t germinate and take properly.
Literally right now is the best time to plant grass seeds. It's not too cold, there's enough water and the grass spends most of the time growing and establishing roots over winter. April is fine but they don't grow as much since they put more energy into flowering before they're established properly.
I also have a patchy and bumpy lawn, more interested in the technique for flattening it, I watched a couple of youtube videos but they all used a special type of sand for depressions not bumps like I have.
Spent nearly 3 years in the late '80s turfing the front lawns of new builds all year round, about the only time we never lay turf was when the snow lay on the ground and it yet it always grew no matter what time of year.
The only issue we ever had was when we turfed the equivalent of a field for some posh people who then didn't bother watering it in the height of summer with the supplied sprinklers and the turf shrank.
Self proclaimed grass expert here, I have spent lockdown experimenting with my front and back lawns - seeding some and turfing other bits and it all works if you do things the right way, just some ways take longer than others.
As above if you are going to turf or seed I think now is probably the absolute best time to do it assuming you are not in the highlands of Scotland with freezing temperatures.
For seeds, I did 2 separate bits of my front lawn during lockdown and both worked. I raked over the lose dirt and weeded it first so it wasn't to compacted, sprinkled loads of grass seed down then as someone above says you need to cover the seeds with soil / compost. the first time I tried I didn't cover them and it took them about 2 weeks to begin to grow, the second time when covered they were visibly growing within a week - I think it was 4 or 5 days. I put a net over it for a few weeks too so the birds couldn't get at the seeds. For the grass to be all nicely grown through, needing a cut and being lawn like ready for the kids to play on it probably took 2 months start to finish. You also need the soil to be of good quality, no little stones or bits of glass mixed in there, as I was putting grass over what used to be a flower bed, and I had time to spare seeds were the way to go out front.
For the back garden I was building a retaining wall, then digging earth from one area and levelling up another and I ended up buying in a load of topsoil, cheap topsoil I think the screen was to 10mm, my plan was to seed it having had success with the front lawn but when the soil turned up it wasn't of a good enough quality, you also need far more topsoil than you would think. I originally ordered 4 tons, then once that was all down I could see I was going to need more, at that point I decided I would stick with the cheap top soil then put turf on the top, rather than buy expensive 3mm screened stuff and seed it, I ended up buying another 4 tons and could maybe have done with another couple. There was a 20m2 section that didn't need raising and was already a lawn so I sprayed that with weedkiller 2 weeks before the turf was coming, then covered it in about 1 inch of topsoil. I did this in August right at the start of the heatwave - so the worse possible time and it was over 30 degrees for each of the 7 days after the turf went down, but despite that by watering the hell out if it things worked out fine, from laying the turf to the grass needed to be cut and being ready to use as a lawn was about 2 weeks.
In your situation I would buy decent top soil, level the ground up, then seed it without bothering to kill the grass that is already there as it will grow through and blend with the seeded grass. Make sure you do your levelling properly first and don't leave bumps in there with the plan of flattening them out later as that wont be as easy. If there are any weeds coming through then you need to pull them out as you cant use lawn-weedkiller on recently seeded grass as it will turn it yellow
Great information,especially Steve -g, over the next few weeks I'll order up some top soil and spread it about, I've probably got an area about 45m2 to cover I guess, mostly flat but with several deep depressions of maybe 4" deep, is it worth spreading a layer out then treading it all down to make a hard layer, sprinkle seeds then a layer of top soil over the top?
Yeah that's what I would do, top soil to level, seeds, then either more top soil or a layer of compost over the top to hold in the moisture.
If there is a run of days with no rain then you'll need to water it as even though it may look like its grown quite well it will take time for the roots to properly grow.
Sow seed in Autumn or Spring when there is no frost for a few weeks.
Soil needs to be fairly loose as air needs to get to the roots.
On an old lawn, I would rotavate it, level it roughly then just 'shimmy' over it with your feet or tamp with a spade and re-seed, keeping it damp until germination.
So I have had a great weekend with the Tilling machine!
£60 purchase delevered from Aldi!
I now have a partially tilled area, I have some fairly "fluffy" looses soil now that I'm going to start levelling about.
I started with very clay based soil, should I add anything into it to make future grass grow better? Compost, topsoil, manure etc?
Compost won't do any harm, till it in whilst you can.
Yeah, a bit of compost wont do any harm and should hold a bit of water in there which will help.
Get that done fairly quick and by June it will be in great shape