nmorgan wrote in
s.com:

I need to repair my lawn which has a burnt crater in the middle of it
from a bonfire and the rest has been damaged with washed out paint
trays being thrown across it etc.
I was thinking about rotorvating it and then laying turf but my dad has
told me it will be a lot cheaper (and easier!?) to just seed it on top
of the existing grass. He has suggested raking it thoroughly to remove
the dead grass and weeds and then sprinkling grass seed around and
re-raking it into the ground. He also suggested a very light covering
of sand to keep the birds off. Just wondering if any of you can shed
any light on this as to whether it might work or what else i should do.
I have thought it is worth a shot and if nothing happens within a few
weeks i can always resort to the turf?

Depends how high your standards are! If you want a perfectly flat, even
lawn, and your existing one actually has holes in, I suspect you need to
re-do it from scratch.

I keep rabbits on one of my lawns. This means I get scraped bits and bits
that have been burnt off with too much rabbit wee.

I patch the affected areas with a little soil to make it up more or less to
the level of the rest (if scraped) and stick a bit of grass seed on the
top. Water for a couple of weeks, and you soon don't notice the
difference.

This is a good time of year to do it too, though you will need to water
well if you are in one of the dry parts of the UK.

But I am not aiming for a bowling green finish. My lawn is green and more
or less flat, and that's all I ask of it.

Victoria