Poor quality lawn

Hello - I've got a small back garden (20' x 26') where nothing really grows (it's patchy grass).

I tried to aerate the soil, but found that the soil is about 1-2 inches deep, with rubble, broken glass etc beneath it. With a baby that's not ideal for summer!

There are two options - dig it out (and cart the rubbish through the house - recently spent a lot of money on floors and re-painting) or the cunning plan - which is to buy a pallet of topsoil and build it up by 5-6 inches by dumping the soil on top of the patchy grass (which I will cut short and leave the clippings on top), and then re-seeding with a shade-loving grass-seed. I'd use a couple of builders' lines to make sure it's even.

On-line calculators seem to suggest 35-40 25kg bags will do it (which I can carry through the house with minimal mess).

I'd probably dig a bag of 10-10-20 or similar into it.

Is this a weekend's work?

What, if anything, could go wrong??

Thanks for any input.

 

Yeah, I was going to say what JWK said about making sure it's all compact.

Good luck!

 

thanks all. The wife is getting a landscape gardener (for a garden this size, I really don't see the point), to come on a no commitment basis to have a look. I'm sure when she sees his price, my plan will seem much more sensible!

 

Is there no way a Hiab could lift cubic metre bags into the garden or is it totally enclosed?

 

totally enclosed - it would have to lift it over the house (2 storey victorian, with normal kitchen extension to the rear).

 

Your house isn't a new build by chance is it?

 

Oh dear. For some reason I thought he was on about his neighbours! Don't know where I got that idea from.

Never heard of a Victorian house to have rubble underneath the soil before.