Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
The message
from "derek" contains these words:

My lawn was neglected for a couple of years while I was away -
over
the past two years it's been cut regularly and had a bit of feed.
But there's a lot of moss and dead grass in it, and when it's
cut,
it has yellow patches and a few bald patches because of the weeds,
moss and dead grass.

So, what do I do now? Kill all the existing green, wat for 2
weeks
and re-seed the whole thing?
Just buy some turf and lay it?

Or what?

I'm kinda lost at this sort of thing, but I would like to have a
nice green lawn!
Can anyone advise, or point me in the right direction?

Buy a small bag of garden lime and a little sharp sand. Mix them,
and
distribute as evenly as possible over the lawn.

Pray for rain.

You can use a spring (wire) rake to scarify the surface, rake out
moss
and dead grass, and generally distribute the sand and lime.

Later, you can apply a lawn feed, with or without a broad-leaved
weed
killer.

I'm not sure about the lime, though. I don't think lawns want it on
any but insanely acid soils. And, in my experience, there are some
mosses which will thrive on lime, though it discourages most kinds:
of course, I don't know which kind you've got.

Otherwise, I agree with Rusty. It'll grow back soon enough, but it'll
speed things up if you really rough up your worst patches and sow
some seed when the weather breaks. What you really shouldn't do is
kill off the lot: if you do that, you're committed to cultivating the
whole area before resowing or returfing. Both seed and turf want a
decent bed to grow into, like any other plant.

Meanwhile, don't cut it too short (even if we get reliable rain):
that will give the mosses and low-growing weeds an advantage over the
grass by taking away the green, which is half its life-support
system. On an established general-purpose lawn, three-quarters of an
inch is quite short enough; half an inch is for special mixtures. At
a guess, I'm inclined to suggest an inch might be better for you to
start with. Use the grass-box, too, of course: lumps of mowings lying
about can kill off or slow down the grass underneath.

--
Mike.