Is your lawn looking a little worse for wear? Flooding over the autumn and winter topped with urine burns from pets, sparse patches and unevenness will all equate to a lawn that doesn’t look too healthy. In some cases it will be past the point of repair, and far better to rip it all up and start from scratch. If you’re planning on laying a new lawn, here’s how you can go about it.

Prepare the soil

When it comes to laying a new lawn, preparation is absolutely key. The area needs to be exactly right, or you won’t get good results later on. Start by ripping up your old lawn, along with any weeds. Either remove them manually or a contact weed killer, you don’t want anything that’s going to stay in the soil or it will prevent your lawn from growing. Next, rotovate the ground by turning over the top eight to ten inches of soil. Depending on your soil this might be possible with a spade, otherwise hire a rotavator. Lots of places will hire these out per day or weekend and it will make light work of it. Next, add nutrients into the soil to give your lawn the best chance of success. You can buy pellets or liquid fertiliser, if you’re using manure ensure its well rotted. Rotting down can cause it to sink unevenly. Next, levelling. You will want to spend time here getting the ground completely level. Get this wrong and your lawn will look lumpy and uneven. You’ll struggle mowing the lawn and will likely take chunks out of any raised areas. Your best bet is to keep raking it and treading on the area in different directions over the space of a couple of weeks.

Decide on a seed blend or turf

Next, decide if you will be using seed or turf. Seed will be much cheaper but more time consuming, with turf you have instant grass although you shouldn’t be standing on it until it’s established. Both seeds and turf will need to be continually watered, it can be easier to invest in a watering timer for your hose to ensure that it’s being kept moist. Choose a grass blend that suits your garden, for example you can get seeds or turf for shady areas, or hard wearing grass it you have pets and/ or kids.

Give it a fighting chance

Once your seeds or turf are down you just need to be patient. Seeds usually germinate in two weeks but it can take some time for everything to fill out and look good. Turf will take two weeks to develop shallow roots and up to six for deeper ones. You will need to keep people and pets the lawn for as long as possible which is ideally one season, but at least good a few weeks. Once it’s around three inches high, you can start to mow taking off one inch at a time. Choose a lawn mower where you can adjust the blade height.

Have it professionally maintained

Finally, maintaining is key. Mowing once a week will keep it looking full and at its best. Fertiliser twice a year will give it the best chance of success. You can also overseed by sprinkling additional seeds into the grass to make it thicker. It can be hard work, so if you’re strapped for time a company like ABC Home & Commercial lawn care can take care of it for you.

There’s nothing nicer in the garden than nicely maintained lawn. They can be tricky to establish, but once they get going they should be fine for years to come.