Nightmare lawn - HELP

[skoogy]

I've recently moved into great house with a very bad garden. On one half of the garden there is a reasonable lawn, on the other is what use to be a lawn. The soil is hard and cracked, and when I water the "lawn", puddles are crerated at the far end.

I want to revive the lawn but have been told too many conflicting methods to do this. I've been told remove 1/2 ft of the hard soil, put compost then topsoil before grass seeds. Someone else has said to purchase lawn from elsewhere and whack ontop.

Can anyone give me detailed advice for a patient but first time gardener, and otherwise good at DIY.

 

[Old Perennial]

If you want to revive the lawn I assume that there is a decent covering of grass. That being the case the puddleing will be due to either the soil being mostly clay or that the area is over compacted.

First job hire a machine from the hire shop (Aireator) which will remove a 'core' of soil from the lwan of cigar dimensions.

then using a mixture of peat and good topsoils bought from GC say 50/50 spread over the lawn thinly.

Sweep the 'top dressing' into the cores add a bit more til it stops disappearing. This repeated over a few years will increase the soild drainage and fertility. Doesnt matter if there is some left on top providing its spread thinly, the grass will grow thro.

Come late September, give the grass a good raking with a fine wire tyne rake ( normally done in spring)to remove all the rubbish and dead roots etc and put on compost heap.

Buy grass seed of similar blend to existing lawn. Probably a 'utility' blend if the grass is fairly broad leaf. this should give a hard wearing surface. Re seed bare areas and sparsly grassed areas.

Next year start a feeding regeime. I use a product called plant magic which is a liquid feed I buy from www.superspray.co.uk and use their hose end feeder to apply it with. I prefer liquid feed to pellets. If it doesnt rain soon after when using pellets, there's a chance that the lawn will burn and turn brown. It will come back in time but it looks unsightly.

Give it a feed every two weeks say march through oct and you should see a big difference. Mow regulaly to get a good turf. Start season with a high cut and gradually lower the blade through spring to give no shorter than an inch from the ground.