On 16/01/2014 12:22, Martin Brown wrote:
On 16/01/2014 11:17, stuart noble wrote:
On 16/01/2014 10:44, Martin Brown wrote:
On 15/01/2014 20:16, stuart noble wrote:

My son's lawn has a dip in the middle. The whole area is probably 60 ft
x 20 ft and the centre is about 3" lower than the edges. I thought of
trying a quick fix by leveling with topsoil/sand/seed and hoping the
existing grass will grow through it. Is that a realistic expectation?

If you top dress the low spots about an inch at a time over three years
you won't need much if any seed. You will likely need a lot of sharp
sand and topsoil though 25kg goes nowhere. If it is deeper as I had with
a big tree root extracted and you use new grass seed expect to see a
different coloured patch of grass there almost forever!

Three years is an eternity to young families these days. Once the lawn
receives the focus (first fine day of the year) it has to be "fixed",
preferably by lunchtime :-)

I would still urge patience. In my first garden I followed the approved
method for removing a hump - basically turf cutting an H shape folding
it back remove unwanted volume and replace. It sounds easy enough but
believe me it isn't. My wife still laughs at the sight of me jumping up
and down on it in sheer frustration when it would not fit back together.

I blamed Gardeners World for the suggested methodology - it looked easy
enough on the box but was very much harder to do in real life.

Slightly concerned that seed might be a waste of time if the weather
takes a turn for the worse. Charlie might get away with it, but I
probably won't. Maybe "burying" turf would be an option? I don't think
the dip is much more than a sod thickness, so I could fine level with
soil on top of the turf. Just thinking out loud here....

Seriously I would do it an inch or so at a time over two or three years
- any other way and you will have a big chunk of no go area during the
growing season since newly sprouted grass seed will not tolerate being
walked on at all first season. Better to top dress the area in winter
and let the grass grow through in spring and repeat until it is right.


Thanks. One of the benefits of bad weather would be that I may not be
able to do anything at all :-)