Ground Preparation Guide - From Scratch

Follow this guide to make sure your new lawn is a success!

If you need assistance or clarification with anything please get in touch here.

If you purchased the The Lawn 'From Scratch' Pack for extra seed and you are overseeding your existing lawn rather than starting from scratch, please refer to the The Lawn Pack guides instead.

1. Remove old lawn/weeds/moss

You may already have a lawn which needs removing before you get started on your new lawn. 

In this instance you should spray glyphosate to kill off the whole area. Glyphosate is a non-selective herbicide so make sure not to spray it on anything you don’t want to kill off. Roundup is one brand of glyphosate which is commonly used but they should all be the same.

After spraying, wait two weeks and rake or scarify out all the dead material. Treat again if there are any surviving plants.

You can also remove any large stones at this point if there are any.

2. Drainage

If drainage has been an issue for your lawn in the past then you should consider aerating the soil at this stage or in extreme cases installing a drainage system. More information can be found about aeration in the Ground Preparation guide.

3. Apply topsoil

Spread a decent amount of quality topsoil (around an inch is fine) across the whole area.

If you want to raise the height of any areas then do so now with more topsoil.

4. Levelling and compacting

Make sure that the lawn is as level as you can make it as it is difficult to sort out once the new lawn has grown. You can use a lawn lute, the back of a rake or fashion your own device if necessary.

Compact the lawn by walking over it or using a heavy roller. You may want to do multiple passes to make sure it is compact.

5. Loosen the top layer

To provide maximum seed to soil contact you now need to loosen the top layer (¼ of an inch roughly). Carry this out using a rake gently and you can try to create channels for the seed to sit in at the same time.