Hello everybody,

I am a complete beginner and would really appreciate some advice.

I have recently bought a property with a garden which needs quite a lot of work. The back garden had a thin strip of lawn with a jungle of shrubs, trees and plants on the one side and a large concrete path on the other. At the end of last summer I attacked the shrubs and reduced their depth from about 2 metres to just under one and last weekend I broke up the concrete path. The plan is to expand the lawn so that I have a large lawn in the centre with two small flowerbeds running on each edge.

I haven't got a lot of money to spare and don't think that I can afford to buy a whole load of turf. My problem is the following. I have one side of the garden (where the shrubs were) which is a flowebed. This is raised slightly above the level of the lawn and is currently full of roots and weeds etc. The other side (the old concrete path) is on a lower level from the lawn ranging from 2-12 inches and is made up of sand and topsoil. I would like to have a nice lawn by the summer.

Any ideas on how to achieve this in the most cost efficient way?

Thanks

Mark