Preparing to seed a new lawn

Headshrinker99

Hi,

I'm after some advice or a good comprehensive guide on how to properly prepare my garden to sow a new lawn.

I've recently moved in to a new house and the garden was previously a mix of a weed/moss ridden lawn and overgrown soil that used to be used as an allotment type area.

It was all on different levels but I've removed all the blockwork and graded it out to produce one sloped area of land about 20m x 9m.

At the moment the land is mostly soil with bits of wild grass sprouting through.  I anticipate that weeds will flourish when the spring arrives.

I will soon start preparing the land to be able to sow a new lawn.  I want to be sure that I prepare it properly.  I plan to remove stones, rotovate the soil, add new topsoil where necessary, flatten down and then rake in new lawn seed.

Does that sound reasonable?  I have two main questions:

1) Do I need to apply weedkiller before sowing the new seed? If so, what type and when do I apply that?

2) Do I need to add fertiliser as well as topsoil?  The soil itself seems to be good quality across most of it.

Thanks,

Paul

Headshrinker99

Anyone? 

Dave Humby

There a plenty of guides available Paul. For example:

https://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/topic/creating-new-lawn/preparing-the-ground 

https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/maintain-the-garden/how-to-prepare-ground-for-a-new-lawn/

Headshrinker99

Perfect! Thanks, Dave :-)

Alchemist

Green thumb who looks after a few lawns around here seem to spray-kill all before preparing a new lawn and someone I know who uses them swears by it. Although when I did mine, I didn’t bother killing it all but had to spray twice in spring and summer but now looks decent and only plan to spot spray going forward. Look here if interested: https://www.greenthumb.co.uk/lawn-makeover 

cheers 

Headshrinker99

Thanks. My lawn has been removed but I have pockets of grass growing back that I want to get rid of before preparing the ground. What's the best herbicide for this?