overseeding existing lawn

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Hi all

Now the inside of the house is almost there i'm keen to tackle the garden.

The lawn is in an OK state. It's quite patchy in areas, few bald spots, grass is quite thin in places and thick in others. Also soil is very compact and hard.

I did have a huge bald spot which i've just treated by scraping back the old soil, applying some seed and topsoil and i've got some lovely new grass coming through now.
Problem is the lawn is quite big and there's quite a number of patches and bald spots so i don't want to be doing this all over.

I'd like to overseed and thicken the lawn all over.

I planned to do the following;

- Aerate the soil using a spiked aerator (as opposed to hollow tines)
- Spread a thin layer of top soil over the existing lawn, brush it in so it's even
- Use a spreader to apply new seeds
- Water, water, water

Can i check if the above sounds correct? A few of the grass seed sellers from amazon are saying i don't necassarily need to apply new topsoil, but i'm concerned the seeds will just sit on the existing compact soil...surely? Even racking it wont knock back too much soil as it's so hard so is new topsoil essential?

Thanks in advance

James
 
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I did a few big patches with compost first seed then a layer of compost on top, these are coming on a treat.

I did a few smaller patches straight onto old soil after raking etc and these are hit and miss so worth the effort for a seed bed.

I'll be cutting a few strips out and laying rolled turf to repair, had best results with that personally.

Used "Sprogs and Dogs" grass seed, suppose to be slightly more tolerant for dog wee but time will tell!.
 
Give the hard patches a go with a hoe to break up the top inch, ( a pain I know but nothing comes easy). then mix your seed into the top soil before spreading it.
 
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thanks all - is it worth getting hold of a cheap electric scarifier as a pre measure to dropping the new seeds down?
 

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