Incoming picture bomb! & thread revival.
After speaking with Chipperhead (which I'm very grateful for) I spent last night/this afternoon showing the lawn some TLC.
My garden was turfed by the contractors (new build). It's a decent quality turf but lots of rocks and stones were left behind, on whats very heavy clay soil, and was laid quite quickly so hasn't looked as good as it could.
I've a patio going in next week so excuse the enormous hole in my garden.
Turf as it stood:
Highlights the need for a topdress & overseed.
I purchased a scarifier back around June, a little flymo lawnrake 3400 something or other which does a pretty good job and can be had quite cheap second hand. I tried the manual rake method and it works but it is hard work!
I ordered some 80/20 Top dressing and also a couple of bags of top soil for general purpose.
So first things first (this was spread over a few days as I was a little too busy to fit it all in just one day:
Mow
Scarify
water (to soften ground for aerating
The next day:
Hollow core aerate
The strip to the left needs to come up a couple of inches so have a turf cutter coming next week so made sense to leave that area be until spring.
I have some aerating sandals but needed a core remover so opted for a manual version. It did the job quite easily as the ground was nice and soft however it did start to wobble and eventually give way, whether this was a dodgy weld or 85KG of me dishing it out some pain I'm unsure.
It was still usable but a little inconvenient!
The day after:
Pick up all the cores! 
I decided with the light fading and other engagements to leave picking up the cores to the next day. It's worth mentioning when aerating to work backwards, as in work towards yourself stepping backward rather than forwards and this way you won't crush all the cores into the lawn. I'm sure a core catching device could be fashioned.
Some cores were shorter than others depending on stones/rocks in the lawn and also if my aerator had broken or not as it was a bit difficult working it when it was leaning 30 degrees.
Mow
The grass was a little to long to dress properly so cut it to around 25/30mm
Seed
Not quite as many bent grasses as Chipperhead used however these can be introduced later, if need be, so I'm told
Weighed them out and then systematically cover the lawn top to bottom and then side to side. You can seed after top dressing and brush in.
Spread bags of top dressing
Begin spreading/leveling
I decided to purchase a Level Lute/TruLute after being told the welding cost would come out about the same. In hindsight a couple of straight edges (such as a ladder) would have been fine. I have a slightly sloping garden and the lute actually worked well but a brush or back of a wide rake would work well too. Next time I'll use a longer single straight edge to get the width of the lawn roughly level.
I didn't use the back of the rake for long as the lute gave a better level due to it's depth/width.
Fertilise
I ordered some pre-seeding fertiliser but was sent a paddock fertiliser but actually has a similar make up and was still suitable (the pre-seeder was out of stock so sent then next closest thing). I used my rotary spreader and weighed out the fertiliser using the same method as for the seed. I made sure an even distribution of fertiliser was achieved as I have spread 4 in 1 feed uneven before which gives patches of well/unfertilised grass which doesn't look good. I've also scorched the lawn, most likely the reason it needed reseeding, by not watering it enough after fertilising.
Water
Even though we are expecting rain I decided to give it a quick misting with the hose.
Then I needed to do the front quickly, there isn't much of it and there is a bed going in up against the house hence the uncut area of grass. There's a line of concrete strip running through the middle which is actually a boundary I think but wanted this covered. I used some top soil rubbed in and then sprinkled some seed on by hand (I had already seeded and it was an afterthought). Then top dressed as normal.
I repeated the same steps as before but with a bust hollow core aerator I decided to give it a quick once over with the solid aerator sandals. I will probably ditch these for a spiked roller as I feel a right **** when the neighbours spot me!
On Chipperheads recommendation I also upgraded my Flymo to a cylinder mower to achieve a quality cut. For the price of a 12-14" electric cylinder mower I was able to pick up a 20" petrol that had been recently refurbed & serviced.
I also have a sprayer and soluble iron waiting to be used but need to wait and read how long/soon I should use it.
A relatively flat lawn is needed for a cylinder mower and the first cut out front highlighted this!:
Took me a while to figure out why it was cutting like this. The rear lawn in pictures above was cut with the cyclinder mower also however the mower was rocking/pivoting on any high ground out the front so was cutting deeper on one side than the other. The front's was particularly bad as each strip of lawn was at different height/angle to the next. However as you can see I've managed to obtain a reasonably decent cut in the pictures further up.
Hopefully it'll look quite nice when the seed germinates and I can get some iron down to green it all up and make it a bit tougher for winter. Will of course post some progress pictures in due course.
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