Does anyone know anything about gardening?

new page fail

My sister's just had hers done and me and the brother in law weeded and raked roughly then the blokes from the lawn firm came round with a compacter thing with a vibrating plate and then with a massive wide rake they went over a few times to make it dead level then laid fresh turf.

Rough cost?

Quite a big front garden, I lost all my Flickr photos or I'd post them, about forty feet each side of the square, £400.

you might want to hold off until the end of summer as a hot dry spell can nuke a freshly turfed lawn. Unless you want to water it continuously, which is an option, but possibly not the most environmentally friendly one.

Look between the tree and the path, quite a dip there. It would take a fair bit of top soil to make it level with the path. A ton of top soil only covers a car park space 3 inches deep. I think.

Look at this: every night for the last month.

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Can anyone explain why repotting should be done gradually, increasing sizes?

This is not a rule that applies to all plants, yet I guess it's the default approach for perennial plants in pots - if just for the reason that it would fill a pot, say, three sizes up / "the final pot" in the same time as just one size up (and if the plant has filled the pot with roots you kinda really should re-pot, as what you do not want is its roots not knowing where to go and then starting to grow in circles around the inside of the pot - when this happens plants usually get depressed and pretty much quit developing much further).
So by gradually repotting you're basically creating a light at the end of the tunnel a couple of times, retarding the moment when it, inevitably, will get really dark in the final pot.

@spindrift In my previous garden, I levelled and then laid turf. In my new garden, I've scarified and overseeded - twice already this year.

The more level lawn came by levelling and turfing, obviously. But the better grass came by scarifying and overseeding.

The best results will probably come from: getting rid of all the crap grass now, levelling the earth and letting it settle over the rest of the summer, seeding it in early autumn (water for three days BEFORE seeding, then for two weeks after), then scarifying and overseeding in early spring next year. Will look boss by summer 2020...

OK that sounds sensible. Question Time:

• when you say 'get rid of the crap grass'...dig it out or weedkiller or ???
  
• 'levelling the earth' - what's best to use? topsoil? just in the low spots to bring them up to the same level as the high points or a layer across the whole lawn (covering the ok grass too)?
  
  

Thanks for the tips!

This morning's harvest

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Definitely digging. It should come off as a layer, as the roots don’t go deep. You can find the level underneath by pushing horizontally with a spade, as it will suddenly get easier when you’re beneath the roots. It’s like cutting turf, but you don’t care about actually preserving the turf in one piece.

You’ll probably want topsoil across the whole thing to give the turf something to take to, unless the soil underneath your grass is ok.

^ that image is sharp when viewed on my phone. Photobucket has really gone to shit.

Jesus H Christ Grandad. You still use Photobucket?

Yeah. It was fine when it was free. What should I use instead?

I always believed it was to prevent a plant becoming waterlogged, I only apply this rule to house plants

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^ this does not work for me most of the time

that image is sharp when viewed on my phone

looks pretty sharp here

now using a laptop and yes, it looks ok. on phone it's still blurry.

on phone it's still blurry.

: (

that image is sharp when viewed on my phone

: )

ha, yeah...

original image viewed in phone gallery :)
uploaded image viewed on lufguss on phone :(
uploaded image viewed on lufguss on laptop :)

2 out of 3 ain't bad!

It might be the phone browser doing some server side compression to limit data-usage or RAM usage?

I only upload one picture at a time else it doesn't work.