Can I renovate a lawn now? or wait till spring?

Or indeed I could just turf it and have the lawn nice by the end of the day?

 

(given that Autumn is just around the corner if I was replacing a lawn I would seed it)

Same preparation Turf as Seed, so its quite a lot of work (compared to overseeding)

Turf more expensive than seed

Generally fewer options available for types of grass (shade / hard wearing / bowling green). That's fine if you just want the "bog standard" grass varieties

Needs watering daily / every-other-day until established (lets say a month or so)

Both seed and turf will probably need some watering in their first full season (i.e. more so than an established lawn)

You will be able to walk on turf sooner (than seeded lawn), but perhaps if done in Autumn that won't matter too much either way?

Personally I don't like the environmental impact of ripping up an inch or so of prime fenland soil and shipping it halfway across the country. Each to his/her own on that one though.

 

Ripping it up and starting again is considerably more work, much more expensive and you are unlikely to get a better result.
Scarifying and re-seeding a lawn your size will take a couple of hours at most and, if you do it properly, will look better than any turf come next spring.

 

Thanks Kris, I really want it to look special. Do you have a particular brand of weed/moss killer that you might recommend me? Also in terms of seed, I would like the "fanciest" grass possible (it wont really be walked on). It is fairly shady I "think", Ill take some photos to show that.

 

OK so I have drawn a quick top-down diagram of my front garden. Hopefully someone can advise best "fancy" seed?
Click picture for bigger view


Slight correction. That hedges on the left doesn't extend over my neighbours lawn. Only mine. So it's a bit more open than appears in the diagram.

In short, blocked from the east, open from the south, partially blocked from the west. Would that be considered "shady"?

 

Anyone?

 

I can't advise because I don't really know what you mean by a "fancy" seed.
Have a read here on types of grasses you can get in the UK. Generally though, any decent lawn seed will look pretty good if it is given good conditions and maintained well.

If it has any shade at all, it is considered shady, which severely restricts which grass will grow there. If you have any areas of heavy shade, or areas that can't see the sky directly above them, then you will always struggle, even with shade tolerant grass. Even shade tolerant grass needs a couple of hours of sunshine a day.

 

Here in Scotland we can literally go 3 months without seeing the sun!

 

Which is why a fancy grass is not a good idea!
Pick a good, tough, local species. It will do much better!

 

Sorry, i sometimes see written "ornamental" which I assumed "looked best" and I see "tough or hard wearing" which I dont need.

 

http://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/shop/grass-seed
CLASSIC Lawn Grass Seed

http://www.bostonseeds.com/products/1/Grass-Seeds/1/Lawn-Seeds/
Economy Grass Seed
either will be fine but choose their alternatives if you need some seed for shade or kids play area
Don't get the Fine Lawn Seed unless you know / plan to know how to look after it, but if you want a bowling green that's the route you'll need to go down.

 

Quite happy to put in the effort and reading to make it look as good as possible, long term and short. I.e. bowling green. But as mentioned it is shady.

 

Ah, sorry forgot about that.

Only shade seems to be the divide between you and your neighbour to the South, or perhaps I have missed something? Is that a very high barrier? In Summer a 6' fence doesn't cast much shadow.

Note that you can get a nice stripy lawn with bog standard grass seed, and it will be wear and drought tolerant (obviously if you can help it with either of those so much the better - no Rugby! and some irrigation in drought). Fine Grasses don't spread by themselves so you need to overseed them each year, they need to be cut very short, and pampered. I have grown them here thinking they were going to give me a smarter looking lawn, but I just don't have the time to do a proper job and I have overseeded them with standard grass seed (i.e. to put some dwarf perennial rye grass back - those varieties are excluded from the fine grass seed mixes).