Advice on rejuvinating lawn

[John mcginley]

Hi,

This year have decided to do some work on our back lawn to try and make it look better (currently have a lot of moss). Been doing research online and looking to see if my plan makes sense or if there are things I should watch out for

Background :-

• we are in the West of Scotland
• for the past 25 years at least the lawn has only ever been cut, maybe a bit of weed & feed on the odd occasion
• not very knowledgeable gardeners
• lawn is approx 100m2 (10m x 10m)

My plan is within the next week (mid-April) :-

• cut lawn to low height
• use a verticutter to go over, couple of times in different directions
• apply soluble ferrous sulphate with mix which is recommended for killing moss, as with the verticutter - couple of times in different directions
• leave for 1 week or so
• use the verticutter again to remove remaining moss
• Aerate lawn - probably going to be with the shoe spikes
• overseed and apply top-soil (seed first and then top soil ?)
• after 5-6 weeks apply another round of soluble ferrous sulphate

Any knowledgeable gardeners out there see any major issues with this, from most of the research I've looked at I know the recommended time to do this would be towards autumn time but I am where I am now and hope that by starting now, maybe by June/July could have something which looks better.

All advice welcomed.

Thanks

 

[John mcginley]

Thanks all. I'd swayed between scarifier/verticutter and for some reason decided on the verticutter, hope that's not something I regret. Thanks for the link to the site for the aerator hire, ideally I wanted to put hollows into the lawn but apart from the manual fork type things couldn't see anything to buy which would do it, will check out the hire.

For the top soil, my plan was to overseed first then light rake and then put the top soil on after and water. Hoping that would get the grass seed to germinate and keep the birds away.

Frost last night and light snow today, was hoping weather would be picking up by now, hopefully next week brings a bit of warmth.