On 6/11/07 08:33, in article
, "Ben R"
wrote:

Hi All

I'm very new to gardening - keen but inexperienced and looking for
advice. Last year we moved into a cottage in the highlands - it hasn't
really been lived in for any significant time in the past 50 years,
and as you can imagine it is quite wild. Wild is good, don't get me
wrong, but there are areas where it would be nice to tame it a little
and have some grassy areas.

These areas are a little bit uneven so need to be levelled. I'm happy
to hire a mini excavator or get someone in to level these areas, but I
am unsure what to do next. In their current state these areas have
developed into rank grassland - lots of dead material and long grasses
tgether with other plants like pignut.

Can ayone advise? Should I be laying turf or taking the surface layer
off and seeding, or am I missing anything else.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Ben


Turfing is easier and quicker, though you can't walk on it for a few weeks
and must keep it watered in dry spells, as you would have to if you seed it.
In either case, you want to level the lawn out, removing all stones etc.
But in the first instance, would it be possible for cut the grass you've
got, scarify it to get all the dead bits and moss etc. out and then feed it
to bring it back to some semblance of a lawn in the spring? All that said,
if it's too big an area or if it really is beyond redemption, personally I'd
go for the turfing option.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'