Total mess of a garden!

Hi all, My back garden is in desperate need of renovating. At the moment there is no lawn at all, the ground is very uneven and there is a lot of gravel etc mixed in with what soil there is (from a previous incarnation of the garden). I cant get a digger to the back of the house as there is no access except through the Garage and utility room, so I cant scrape away the top level as it were. At the moment it is literally full of every type of weed you can possibly imagine! So my question is this.....If it were you how would you go about turning this mess into a functional lawned area? I can barrow through enough topsoil, that's not a problem, so I was thinking maybe barrow through a few tonnes of topsoil, level and then turf......but what about the weeds? will they re emerge through? Do I need to weed kill all the weeds first before starting? If I do will this affect the lawn when Its done? Help!!!

John

 

A couple of pictures to give us an idea of what you're dealing with would be good please John.

 

I'll get some photo's tomorrow for you I'm at work atm....nights.....urghhh. I live in Telford, Shropshire. I've barrowed as much of the gravel out as I can already, whats left is kind of mixed in with the soil that's there. What it is is I used to be really into koi carp, like big time, had a huge pond that took up most of the garden and the rest of it was just graveled. Well what with work, kids money etc I just kind of lost interest and eventually knocked the pond down (it was raised, made of concrete, brick etc.). And what I'm left with is a wasteland unfortunately. The weeds themselves, I have no Idea apart from the multitude of dandelions....there's stuff there I've never seen before! I do have some nice plants around the edge of the garden that I want to keep so I don't want to use a really toxic substance that's gonna kill everything. The soil is quite well draining with some sand (and a lot of gravel).

John

 

It would help in the future if you would put your area in your avatar box please. Quite often with garden or plant discussions we need to know the climate of the area members are in, particularly if they live outside the UK.

We'll wait on your pictures then see what can be done.

Don't work to hard, the shift will soon be over.

 

Just done it....go me!!

 

Thanks John, it cuts out the need to repeat ourselves when a question is asked.

You're a rugby man?

 

Yeah I play for our local side Telford Hornets RFC, although I'm dropping down through the XV's now...getting old, slow and lazy. ha ha.

 

As long as you're still happy to play then age shouldn't be a problem, unless the team pension you off of course.