Rejuveneating a lawn - much success ?

digmen1, Feb 17, 1:19am
I am try to re-rejuvenate my small lawn, hand weeding and fertilizing etc.
This is my first summer at it.

I wondered if many of you have ever had much success over a few years, rejuvenating a tired weed over grown lawn.

I really like the idea of nice soft grass and no weeds or clover etc.

gem661, Feb 17, 1:55am
Spray, hand weed, layer over soil, rake to fine tilth, sow seed, fert, install bird scarer thingys, water, do light medium height mowing and only in ideal mowing conditions while establishing lawn.

digmen1, Feb 17, 2:18am
No - that seems a plan for re-laying a lawn.

maclad, Feb 17, 3:29am
No, digmen, that is good advice tho summer is not really the best time to do it. Another thing you can do is to rake the lawn,hard, all over to remove all the old dead thatch underneath, that will help your lawn to take off. If it is a large lawn you can hire a scarifier to do this job. Quite an important job if you want a really nice lawn. Also aerating lawn will help but the only way for home gardeners to do that is with a garden fork.

gem661, Feb 17, 3:46am
Many times I have done remedial work on lawns and new lawns from scratch.
Dedication is the key to establishing and maintaining a decent lawn area.
If you aim for 'nice soft grass. etc' it is important to get the initial prep of the site in hand, a suitable 'base' is needed before going to the next stage. After that it needs sowing and nurturing. Ready lawn is another option.

kiwibubbles, Feb 17, 8:27am
probably not the best time to be doing it. i've always been told if i want to work on the lawn to do it during autumn or spring

digmen1, Feb 17, 8:40am
I would have thought that Autumn was not a good time, as any grass you planted would not grown much with winter coming up.

maclad, Feb 17, 4:48pm
Autumn is good. Sow now and you will be competing with hundreds of weed seeds and dryness and heat.

cantabman1, Feb 17, 5:09pm
Agrees; start your prep now, but sow the new seeds next month, as we go into Autumn and there is a dew in the mornings and more rain hopefully.
Farmers often sow out in the Autumn for winter crops as there is a good growth period between March and May.

digmen1, Feb 17, 6:01pm
Thanks for the tips on autumn.

But I'd also like to hear from anyone who has actually got rid of their weeds problem and got a nice lush soft lawn by rejenavting it - NOT a complete re-sew.

Eg can you take an area and hand weed it, and spray for some weeds (using eg turf clean), over sew some seed and then hope to get some nice grass next year?

poppy500, Feb 17, 6:25pm
You will still be left with the grass variety you have now. So, if the type (variety) of grass is not to your liking now it won't be after you've worked on it either.
Turf X for weeds, fertilize it and water it in summer.
Get the right seed variety for your situation- shaded: v hot. V dry v high traffic etc. you will get a better result either resowing ( best) with appropriate care or less better result over sowing (as original species will still be there).
The bed prep us critical.

bluefrog2, Jun 16, 10:45am
Years ago, I accidentally sowed bare patches on my lawn with a rye plus clover blend of lawn seed. And the lawn came back amazingly lush and green with clover growing between the ryegrass. I've always resown with a clover mix since.
If you don't mind a some clover in your lawn, a lawn blend with a bit of clover seed will make your lawn lusher and more resistant to dry spells. I bought the seed from The Warehouse, and it was plai, untreated lawn seed.