Garden like a building site

This week I did the first cut of the lawns. We moved in to this house in October last year, so only mowed lawns and weeded them at the end of last year.
The back lawn is in poor condition. There are patches where weeds have grown, and the grass is very thin. Upon investigating these points, (by trying to aerate them) it turns out that about 75% of the lawn has lots of stone within 4" of the surface. In some places it appears there's only about 1" of soil before you hit stone. The only area that's not too stony is slightly sunken, by about 3". One stone which was poking through the surface turned out to be about 12" x 8" x 8", which left quite a hole in the lawn! By stony I mean there's no way to get a fork in any further.
The soil is clay, and only about half the back lawn gets direct sunlight. The house was built 8 years ago, and it seems we still have half the building site under our lawn.
Given that the lawn is so poor, and the ground full of stones (and maybe more large rocks), might the easiest thing be to sacrifice what we have, dig over and remove stones, then seed the grass from scratch? I'd rather invest some time and effort and have a decent lawn, than be left with our current mud and moss mix.

 

Youl need to bring in good top soil.

Id pickaxe or stick a small digger through whats already there to break it up then rake out as much stone as poss before spreading new topsoil and seeding.

When you come to seed use a pree seed fertilizer.

 

Hmallettuk welcome to the forum.

It sounds a real nightmare and there will be lots of hard work involved before you can enjoy a lovely new lawn but I'm sure it will all be worth it in the end.Good luck.Hel.xxx.

 

You both agree that it sounds like there's no chance of rescuing it though? I'm not going to bother trying to rescue it as it is if there's no point!
If I did decide to sacrifice what we have and start over, would it be best to enjoy the summer on what we have, then sow the grass seed after summer?

 

"You both agree that it sounds like there's no chance of rescuing it though?"

You can't rescue it without removing the worst of the stone. You'll also need to bring in more topsoil.

"If I did decide to sacrifice what we have and start over, would it be best to enjoy the summer on what we have, then sow the grass seed after summer?"

Id eitheer do it now before mid April or leave to next spring.

Autumn weather is not the best for starting a lawn especially a shaded one.

 

Hmallettuk you have been conned like so many other owners of new builds into buying a dream house only to find you'ave got the remains of lazy builders in your garden.....not bodies I hasten to add but the shocking amount of builder's waste that the guys were just too lazy to remove off site or because it was just too darn expensive to remove.

You haven't told us if you have a patio or decking area to sit out on in summer, if you have either then you can afford to take your time and get everything ready for later on.

If you have a full time job it may get very hectic trying to do all the ground work as well as your day job..... that's unless you have a great bunch of mates who are more than willing to help you out if there is an offer of a couple of cans of lager!

It's all depends if you can get the work done in time to enjoy it this year. Hel.xxx.

 

Thanks both of you It looks like next spring might be time for some serious work! That'll give me plenty of time to plan and prepare.
Having spoken to a neighbour, apparently before this small estate was built there were some old stone farm outbuildings here. It seems that below the lawn half of them is still there!

 

Just to bring back this thread from 5 months ago...
All the comments above were about the back garden, which still is quite poor, but at least has less weeds in now.
I referred in the first post to a large stone I removed from the back lawn. After I'd removed it, I filled in the hole with fresh topsoil, and seeded it (about 12" square). That is currently the best bit of grass in the back garden, so at least I know that grass will grow nicely with the effort being put in.
Tonight when weeding the front lawn, I found that there was a stone under one of the weeds, and a bit of poking around made me think it was quite big, so I peeled back the turk, and dug down a sqare foot to a depth of about 6". That hole was about 50% soil (a nice loamy soil though), and about 50% builders rubble. So now it looks like I might have a lot more work on my hands!