bare patches and mushrooms

We have 2 lawms with a patio in the middle, one lawn is covered in clover, but having read some other threads i think we may leave it that way for now, main reason we wanted to get rid of it was that it attracts creatures that like to sting toddlers! but as it is green etc then i think we will leave it for now.

The other lawn has 3 main problems:

1) it has bald patches where there is no grass, I have no gardening knowledge whatsoever so need a very basic explanation of what I should do (have read people mention overseeding but dont know what that means)

2) there are mushrooms growing in patches - why and how can we prevent them?

3) the third problem is that the lawn is very bumpy but I think we will have to live with that a bit longer too, the remedies for that sound expensive and am currently on maternity leave so can only do very cheap remedial work at the moment.

Thanks for any help, This will be our first winter proper with a garden so I dont know what the winter will do to the already patchy lawn.

 

Hi Clueless

Bare patches - if they're not too big, I fill them with turfs cut from some other part of my lawn. Since I've been steadily reducing the size of my lawn since I moved to this house, I've always had "spare" turf for patching. Even if you have to buy turf, a roll or two is quite cheap but only available from garden centres at certain times of the year.

If the patches are very large, you'll need to seed them and I suggest a search in this part of the forum for the best way of doing it.

Mushrooms - they're growing in your lawn because it's their natural environment. I've got some growing where tree roots are rotting away under the lawn. I just rake them out and put them in the compost bin. I don't think you can permanently get rid of them but no doubt other forum members will know more about this than I do.

Good luck!