Spring time, so time to work on the lawn.
Day 1.
Manual hollow core aeration!!!! Back breaking stuff. Originally hired a machine but the company cancelled on me last minute. Raking up the cores was also quite an effort. Spent the whole day on just aerating and collecting the cores.
No pictures as I was too knackered and still annoyed with the hire company.
Aeration I tend to do in the autumn, but I had already prepped the lawn so decided to carry it out in Spring anyway as I have a bit of time off from work.
In general, I aerate once a year and scarify once every two years. My soil type is mainly clay based.
Day 2.
Top dress and bring up a few low spots in the lawn. Not that many as you might be able to see in the photos, but still used approximately 500l of topsoil.
Over-seeded with some fresh perennial rye/red fescue mix. Had good results last autumn with this, so went with it again.
Slight issue with the spreader, but still worked ok. May replace this next year though.
Used approximately 4kg of seed for the over-seeding. Also used a little for a few bare patches.
Then applied fertiliser with the same spreader. Brand was by Ivison with NPK value 11-5-5. Decent amount of nitrogen to feed the existing grass but not too much that it crowds out the new grass seed and hamper germination.
Finally watered the lawn well.
Done.
(Photo before applying fertiliser)