Hello I'm new here, it looked like a good place to get some info so here I am!

I have a large garden and the lawn is just more than I can manage. I've been here 8 years and every summer it gets away from me at least once, needing weeks of mowing and re-mowing to get it short and green again. Currently it's 6-7 weeks since the last mow so as you can imagine, it is very long!

So I want to start again. I've sourced a rotovator - not sure how strong, it belongs to a friend but I haven't seen it. She says it's just a little one, and petrol.

I need to know pretty much everything - preparation, the rotovating itself, preparing the ground afterwards for re-seeding.

This will not be with grass - I'm going for a mix of white clover, daisy, ribwort plantain, speedwell and a few other similar things: still need mowing but nowhere near as much as the current stuff and if I can't manage it for a few weeks, I'll still be able to catch up again.

So, help please! Ideally, I'd like to not have to mow the current lawn short again before I rotovate it but I figure I'll probably have to. I don't mind removing the grass sods post-roto, the overall ground level could do with taking down a little anyway as it's crept up an inch or two over the years.

Thanks

nikirushka wrote:
Hello I'm new here, it looked like a good place to get some info
so here I am!

I have a large garden and the lawn is just more than I can manage.
I've been here 8 years and every summer it gets away from me at least
once, needing weeks of mowing and re-mowing to get it short and green
again. Currently it's 6-7 weeks since the last mow so as you can
imagine, it is very long!

So I want to start again. I've sourced a rotovator - not sure how
strong, it belongs to a friend but I haven't seen it. She says it's
just a little one, and petrol.

I need to know pretty much everything - preparation, the rotovating
itself, preparing the ground afterwards for re-seeding.

This will not be with grass - I'm going for a mix of white clover,
daisy, ribwort plantain, speedwell and a few other similar things:
still need mowing but nowhere near as much as the current stuff and
if I can't manage it for a few weeks, I'll still be able to catch up
again.

So, help please! Ideally, I'd like to not have to mow the current
lawn short again before I rotovate it but I figure I'll probably have
to. I don't mind removing the grass sods post-roto, the overall
ground level could do with taking down a little anyway as it's crept
up an inch or two over the years.


If you want the grass to be gone, rent a sod cutter, cut the sod deep enough to
get most of the roots, then compost the cuttings to kill off the roots and seed,
before re-introducing them into the bed. If you just till the grass in, it will
take a few repetitions of tilling and raking out the grass clumps to get most of
them.

Can I do that without mowing?

Without mowing it short first, I mean. Bit quick with the reply button there!

On 09/08/15 17:43, nikirushka wrote:
Hello I'm new here, it looked like a good place to get some info so
here I am!

I have a large garden and the lawn is just more than I can manage. I've
been here 8 years and every summer it gets away from me at least once,
needing weeks of mowing and re-mowing to get it short and green again.
Currently it's 6-7 weeks since the last mow so as you can imagine, it is
very long!

So I want to start again. I've sourced a rotovator - not sure how
strong, it belongs to a friend but I haven't seen it. She says it's
just a little one, and petrol.

I need to know pretty much everything - preparation, the rotovating
itself, preparing the ground afterwards for re-seeding.

This will not be with grass - I'm going for a mix of white clover,
daisy, ribwort plantain, speedwell and a few other similar things: still
need mowing but nowhere near as much as the current stuff and if I can't
manage it for a few weeks, I'll still be able to catch up again.

So, help please! Ideally, I'd like to not have to mow the current lawn
short again before I rotovate it but I figure I'll probably have to. I
don't mind removing the grass sods post-roto, the overall ground level
could do with taking down a little anyway as it's crept up an inch or
two over the years.

How big is the lawn you want to remove? You are in for a lot of hard
work anyway - especially if the lawn has had a lot of footfall over the
years and is highly compacted. Trying to rotovate compacted soil,
especially if it has a lot of clay in it, will need a powerful machine
(depending somewhat on how deep you want to go), and trying to keep the
blades down, and not riding up over the surface, can be very tiring.

Using a cutter will save some work, but remember just how much you will
produce! For every 5cm depth, an area of 20 sq metres will make around a
tonne. All these will have to be lifted and moved if you want to compost
them. Do you have the space to compost everything?

One other way is to spray the lawn with glyphosate (eg Roundup), wait a
month, spray again, then wait another month and spray again to remove
any remaining very persistent deep-rooted weeds. Then you could
rotovate, rake flat, and sow your wildflower seeds.

--

Jeff

Big. The garden itself is an outer edge corner plot, 130ft down the longest side and roughly 100ft along the back; the lawn covers roughly 2/3 of that and I want most of it gone.

I've certainly got the space for composting, I've got areas where the grass clippings and plant cuttings etc get chucked anyway.

Glyphosate might be a better idea, I did wonder about that - but, I have to be careful of the plants as well as I have rhubarb and raspberries growing at the edge of one bit of it, and the back portion (there are three distinct areas within the lawn, not physically separate though) has three fruit trees growing in it.

On 10/08/15 16:19, nikirushka wrote:
Big. The garden itself is an outer edge corner plot, 130ft down the
longest side and roughly 100ft along the back; the lawn covers roughly
2/3 of that and I want most of it gone.

Well, assuming around 8 to 9000 square feet of lawn, removing the top 2
inches of soil means you will have to move around 50 tons of soil
(depending on what sort of soil you have - see
https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/questio...060225AAm2MHo).

I've certainly got the space for composting, I've got areas where the
grass clippings and plant cuttings etc get chucked anyway.

Glyphosate might be a better idea, I did wonder about that - but, I have
to be careful of the plants as well as I have rhubarb and raspberries
growing at the edge of one bit of it, and the back portion (there are
three distinct areas within the lawn, not physically separate though)
has three fruit trees growing in it.

Is it possible to cover the plants with polythene sheet along the edge
where you are spraying? Don't worry about the fruit trees if they have
no leaves near the ground. Glyphosate is not absorbed through wood, so
even if you get the trunk wet, no damage will occur. Even so, if you are
going to spray, make sure it is a day without any wind, and no rain due
for at least 6 hours. And if you do get glyphosate on the leaves of
wanted plants, you can save the day by immediately washing off the
glyphosate with a good spray of water from a hose.

--

Jeff

nikirushka wrote:
Bob F;1015646 Wrote:

If you want the grass to be gone, rent a sod cutter, cut the sod deep
enough to
get most of the roots, then compost the cuttings to kill off the
roots and seed,
before re-introducing them into the bed. If you just till the grass
in, it will
take a few repetitions of tilling and raking out the grass clumps to
get most of
them.

Can I do that without mowing?

I haven't tried that. Try asking the sod cutter rental place.