Hi all,

I have live in a flat in a very soggy part of Scotland and we have a shared lawn out our back. The garden is a reasonably nice space to be thanks to a neighbour who has since moved out and taken her green fingers with her but unfortunately the lawn is a disaster.

We have two dogs and there are another two that live in the building. The grass was mostly moss (I suspect due to the fact parts of the garden are very shaded and a lot of water can gather on the grass making it permenantly sodden) and when the dogs have been running on it they have just ripped huge chunks of it up leaving bare patches which have now turned to mud. It honestly looks awful and I'm sure our neighbours who don't have dogs must be a bit annoyed at us for destroying it over winter.

I'm willing to do the work it takes to fix it but I know NOTHING about lawns or gardening in general. Can anybody suggest anything? We haven't got a lot of money to spend and the lawn doesn't need to be perfect - just now the muddy, soggy mess it is just now!

Any suggestions would be great for this gardening newbie!

V.

From the start...
1. Clear or kill with roundup, this sounds like a start again job.
2. Put some drainage in...this will be really important, I know it's a load of hassle but doing the thing right usually is. The drains should be half a metre apart and about 300mm deep. Put CLEAN stone in there, on top of perforated yellow pipe. top the stone off with coarse sand, NOT builders sand, that will only block the drain. Make sure they are full or you will be cursing the hollows in your lawn for ever!
3. If the shade is from bushes/trees, cut them back. Get permission if they are not your trees, and always ask before you cut some Lady's bush...It's only polite! If the shade is coming from buildings ask for shade tolerant grass seed at your local garden centre. £12 will get you 25 square metres worth, approx.
4. Tie up the dogs for a month after you have seeded or laid turf, walk them like! Don't be cruel! But bear in mind they will cause problems going forward so mabye restrict their access in the garden...??

The cheapest option will be to seed, the easy option will be to turf.

Hope this helps.