Sophie wrote via gardenbanter.co.uk...
I'm hoping for a little advice, i'm new to gardening as I have only
owned a garden since yesterday, well it is currently a paddock not yet a
garden. It is over grown with weeds about three foot high, there isn't
really any grass at all, it is also uneven all over and bumpy. I would
like to end up with a healthy even lawn. With little to no experience I
do not want to make silly mistakes at this stage. In the futre I wold
like to create a beautiful garden but for now I'd just love a lawn. Any
advice would be much appreciated, thank you for taking the time to read
this.

Welcome to this Newsgroup.
Personally I would spray with Glyphosate weedkiller (Roundup) to kill all
the grass and weeds, may take two applications and the plants need to be
actually growing with green leaves for it to work. So you may be well to
wait until next spring.
Look at your soil, dig into it, is it clay and very wet/water retentive if
so you will need to rotovate in a lot of sand to open it up and improve
drainage. If it's very sandy then some good loam may be a good idea.
Then I would rotovate the whole lot going over it time and time again to
break up any clods and get a fine tilth. Then rake flat, heal all over (walk
on you heals or roller) leave it to settle and rake again, walk/roller again
and rake again, etc, etc until it's flat and firm. Then seed it with a good
lawn seed, there are lots of different types of lawn seed so you need to
decide if you want lush but tender grass or hard wearing grass for kids to
play on.
Doing the preparation well is the key to a good lawn, don't bother or get it
wrong and you will always have trouble. That holds for seed or turf.
You then need a good lawnmower, a cylinder mower (kept sharp) is the only
sort for a good lawn, rotary mowers are never as good.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK