I tried to dig up some of the roots but it seems they’re less than an inch of soil and the underneath is stone and rock and it’s fairly difficult/ impossible to dig down to lift the roots! Any ideas how to pull these up without breaking my foot jumping on the fork?
I suspect the ground is becoming so hard now it's going to be all but impossible to dig it. I'm afraid you will be better to wait until we've had some rain (quite a lot of rain) and then attack it again. I appreciate you want to get it sorted for the kids, but even if you were ready to turf now it would be pointless. There is no way newly laid turf would survive in this heat unless you had a sprinkler going on it from dawn to dusk.
To be honest, I’ve resorted to trying to get rid of the weeds this year. I think it’s going to have to be a work in progress! I’ll keep tryin to get weeds up and wait on the rain to dig it further! I’ve noticed underneath the soil they’re some sort of fabric stuff too! I don’t know how far this stretches
LoL hi, I’d like to level it too! I tried just throwing grass seed down but birds seemed to eat it lol and it didn’t work after I watered it! I really need to bite the bullet and spend a week pulling weeds out
I haven’t tried to level mine yet.
For a small patch, some bricks and chicken wire have protected it from birds for me, but for a large lawn I think you just put down more than they can eat.
I'd agree with the other folk in that I think you're best off waiting for the regrowth of the perennial weeds that you can then spray with Glyphosate. If you don't then they'll be forever regrowing and difficult to address on a newly seeded / turfed lawn. From your pics I think you are also seeing why the grass has struggled due to poor soil conditions and the weeds have won. If you don't address the soil then you'll struggle to create conditions to sustain a lawn. The 'fabric' was probably put in to try and suppress the weeds at some point. Ideally you want that out.
Depending on what you want to ultimately achieve it might be worth digging out the ground and introducing new soil. A very tough job in these dry hard conditions. You could wait till the autumn when the all-round conditions are better (although I'm sensing your a chap who likes to get on with things!). Could you get a mini-digger in?
Any tips on how to improve the soil? I really don’t mind a bit of hard graft if the end result will be good.
If I had to dig down about a foot to rid the old soil, stones and weeds. do I just fill it in with a foot of topsoil followed by the turf on the top. Or, do I put sand or anything else to improve the quality of the soil to nourish the lawn?
To get on with it I could absolutely soak the garden over the next day! I’m off on holiday over the next 2 weeks
why would I be best to take the fabric out if the reason it’s in is to suppress the weeds.
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I haven’t tried to level mine yet.
For a small patch, some bricks and chicken wire have protected it from birds for me, but for a large lawn I think you just put down more than they can eat.
Depending on what you want to ultimately achieve it might be worth digging out the ground and introducing new soil. A very tough job in these dry hard conditions. You could wait till the autumn when the all-round conditions are better (although I'm sensing your a chap who likes to get on with things!). Could you get a mini-digger in?
If I had to dig down about a foot to rid the old soil, stones and weeds. do I just fill it in with a foot of topsoil followed by the turf on the top. Or, do I put sand or anything else to improve the quality of the soil to nourish the lawn?
To get on with it I could absolutely soak the garden over the next day! I’m off on holiday over the next 2 weeks
why would I be best to take the fabric out if the reason it’s in is to suppress the weeds.
Would a mini digger be expensive to hire?