New Lawn needed

[kungfuslippers]

I have a fairly large front and back garden ~ 250metres sq. I got

gardener in to relay the lawn as the existing lawn is in a terribl state due to building work that we'd had done last year. The soil i quite poor quality too, sandy in some places. Being a new build I'v found bricks, bits of glass and other odds and ends after having du down a few inches.

The gardener seemed to have a good rating from the ratedpeople websit so I got him to start work. To cut a long story short I had to sack hi before he completed the job due to poor planning on his part.

As things stand at present I still have a lawn in a poor state plus couple of tons of soil and a ton of sand left over from the uncomplete job sitting on my front lawn.

I don't have much time at the weekends to work on the garden myself a I've got two small kids which was the whole reason for getting someon in who could sort it all out for me.

Having been bitten once, I'm now contemplating doing it myself over long period of time but wanted to get a feel for how difficult the jo might be.

Most turflaying advice seems to indicate that I'd need to

1. Possibly use a turf cutter to take of the top layer of turf.

1. Rotorvate my soil to various depths (15cm?). I'm worried if I d this though that I'll bring all the rubbish lying just below th surface to the top which will mean extra work.

2. Flatten the surface down and spread a few inches of soil + sand.

1. Lay turf on top.

I've had a few quotes to do the job at around 2k which is a lot o money to me (seeing as we're all living in the credit crunch). I'v been told it could be done in about 3 days.

Any advice would be useful.

cheers

-- kungfuslippers

[Skinty]

Where do you Live ?

"kungfuslippers" wrote in message news: [e-mail]...

[kungfuslippers]

Central Mancheste

-- kungfuslippers

[trader4]

What exactly is wrong with what is there now? Is there a good quality grass growing and reasonably established or is it a mess of crappy cheap grass and weeds? If the soil has some small bits of debris like glass mixed in, that is not necessarily a problem, if it's a small % and the rest is decent. On the other hand, if the soil is really poor and/or the grass that's growing is some cheap contractor's mix, then you would be better off to till it and mix in some humus, which could be seasoned manure, peat moss, compost, etc depending on what's available and cost. Then you could lay sod or start from seed. Seed will save you money. If there is large debris like bricks, then that needs to be raked out.

If you're going to do over, get your plan in place and plan to establish a new lawn starting the last couple weeks of summer or first couple weeks of fall.