Hi, Everyone

I would be most grateful if any of you can offer me some advice. I have a small lawn in SE London that is being a real pain.

My garden has been put together by a previous owner of the house with great care. some landscaping has been done, and there are several interesting plants that grow well including a bamboo plant and a rose of somekind. The latter seems to grow whilst you watch! Sending long tendrils through any and everything including the fence. However, the grass is not so capable.

In short the grass grows in patches and seems to contain different species. Some is fine of blade and others are more cylindrical. To be honest, I don't really mind what kind of grass grows as long as something does so I don't have to put up with a bald and/or weedy garden.

Last May I had to some work that involved chopping up areas of the grass, so I took that opportunity to lay some turf over some of the bald patches and trying to plant seeds in others. Sadly, neither really worked and since then the grass has in many places died or been overrun with weeds.

I have posted few photos he

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25868463@N06/?saved=1

I have recently planted more grass seed in the bald spots and some of it is growing a little albeit very slowly and in other places it's not growing at all.

My main problem is the annoying weed that became so prolific over the winter that when i finally got around to pulling it out, it left huge bald spots and it mainly grew where my failed turf had been planted.

Now, I know nothing of gardening and apart from the measures above and little feed I have done nothing to try and get the lawn in better shape until now.

Another thing I think might be significant is that during my digging up i found that the layer of soil the lawn trys to grow in is very shallow. 2-4 inches in most places, and beneath that is a collection of concrete and builders rubble. Logic tells me that alot of morter and concrete could affect the PH of the soil but I have never tested it.

All I know is it looks bad and it won't respond to my remedial action.

So, please excuse my ignorance, but I could really use some help if anyone has any glimmers of insight.

Many thanks.