On 03/08/2015 12:14, Sarie wrote:

Hey guys, my name is Sarah and I'm new to the group. I've been reading
through many of the useful threads here but I still can't make up my
mind what to do for the best in my situation.

I think as Chris has suggested you would be better off sketching a plan
of what you want it to look like when finished and decide where you are
going to have any patio to catch the sunshine or borders with plants in.

I bought my house late last year and the garden was a bit of a disaster
zone so I've been renovating it and I'm now at a point where I'm ready
to tackle the lawn.

It doesn't look *too* bad to me.

I suspect if you lawn mow it regularly and treat it a couple of times
with weed and feed the grass will overcome the weeds. Then Verdone will
allow you to kill any remaining broadleaf weeds in the lawn. You will
have to do it several times. On a small area like that you can also and
satisfyingly pull them out after using a 12" screwdriver down the side
of the tap root to loosen it up. Don't buy an expensive get weeds out of
lawn tool they are all rubbish and vastly overpriced.

It may need a hollow tined fork to improve drainage to see off the moss
but try an ordinary fork first. How fussy are you about the moss? It is
green and doesn't need so much cutting. If you want rid then raking it
out and adding some grass seed should have time to grow this season but
you will have to stay off the lawn whilst it establishes. You probably
want a tough wearing grass seed rather than fine bowling green.

I was originally considering nuking the existing lawn and rotavating the
cleared area so I could level it and re-seed but having read up on the
process I'm not sure it's viable or affordable for me.

Top dressing the low spots with a soil/sand/peat mix going into winter
is probably a lot less effort.

Is there any way I can salvage the existing lawn just by manually
digging and leveling the worst areas and using bags of topsoil to fill
in the worst dips? I have no idea how to tackle the deep rooted weed
problem - is there a deep root weed killer I can use that won't damage
the soil and kill any grass that is still alive? I've repaired lawns in
the past but I've never had to deal with one with so many deep rooted
weeds and major structural issues before :/

Broad leaf specific weed killer. You want something like Verdone and
also a version in the touch weeder wax/gel formulation so that every
time you see something emerge you can zap it. Big weeds don't last that
long in a lawn that is being looked after regularly.

I was hopeful that if I could manually level out the worst areas of the
lawn and kill off the weeds I could rake in a top dressing and try to
overseed the lawn to give it a chance but I'm not sure if there's
another approach I've not considered.

I'm not after the lawn of the year, I'd just like a lawn that is green,
mostly weed free and doesn't look like it has corpses buried in it.

Beware of trying the cut an H in the lawn, fold back turf and raise the
level. It is much harder to do than it reads in the books. Small height
adjustments are much easier with top dressing during winter.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown