Flat lawn?

[motorbiking]

Last year mrs motorbiking in a fit of girl power orders 4 tonne of top soil, which she gets dumped on the lawn while I was at work and proceeds to very badly rake it over the to be lawn. Unfortunately the quality of the work was very patchy and the now packed down soil is stoney, hard and lumpy.

She wants to hire a gardener, but I really question if the whole lot needs rotavating and flattening. What is the basic process for prepping for lawn? should I be hiring a rotavator and roller?

any advice?

do I need something as big as this ? or are the smaller ones still good?

 

[Ian H]

That looks a beast!!! How much is it to hire that?

 

[r896neo]

Yes that's the boy you want.

Any smaller than that and it wont have driven wheels so can be a pain to use. The smaller tiller types are no use at turning over grass areas they are really only for turning large beds and previously cultivated areas.

 

[motorbiking]

about £60-80 per day

do i need some sort of roller too? or would a hardcore impacter do that job

 

[mwatsonxx]

Don't compact the soil. Just rotovate, do it in a number of passes and not too deep. I'd reckon on 10 to 12 passes in different directions, gradually getting deeper. If you try to go too deep too soon they tend to dig themselves in. Let the machine do the work. Then rake it level, I also dragged a building plank around to get rid of high spots.

 

[motorbiking]

that sounds like a cunning plan - thanks