In order to achieve the perfect garden lawn, ground preparation is key. This first step of preparing ground for turf is often ignored by DIY gardeners resulting in an unhealthy lawn. As professional landscapers we understand the importance of a garden’s foundation – the soil beneath your new lawn, so we recommend spending the time and efforts required at this stage for the best turf results. Even if you are on a tighter budget, there are many steps for you to take to make sure you give your new turf the best chance of healthy establishment for a lush green lawn.
If you have an existing lawn for replacement: the first step to take is removing all of the old lawn turf. For this, all you need to do is slice beneath the turf using a spade. For larger areas we highly recommend using a turf cutter, which are simple and easy to use. You will have your old lawn up in no time! We often use Turf cutters in our landscaping projects for efficiency which you can hire from your local tool hire or our local depot where we have turf cutters available for you to hire!
What to do with old turf?
Eco Tip: Old turf makes great compost! Stack the old turf, grass side down in your compost heap in a sunny area of the garden. When decomposed the grass will be broken down into great nutrients for plants!
Starting from a blank canvas: Once all old turf has been removed or turf is being laid for the first time, you must prepare the ground for turfing. This step involves thoroughly turning all the earth to a depth of 15cm beneath the soil surface using a spade or powered cultivator. Again, we highly recommend hiring a cultivator to save time and effort conditioning the soil from ourselves or your local plant hire for the best results but with a bit of hard work a spade will do the trick! Rotovators/ Cultivators use rotating blades to break down and turn the soil
Clearing the area: The next step after rotavating soil ready for turfing is to clear the area of all debris such as stones, weeds and old bits of turf left over after removal.
This is a turf guide for you, not a sales pitch for us. However, due to our many years of trying and testing different methods and materials to create that perfect lush green lawn for our clients. We highly recommend using our Premium Certified Topsoil for Turfing and Seeding to either replace your top layer of soil or to build up the ground for the perfect level lawn. We have often had high end landscape projects where the customer desired a perfect lawn or golf course project for the perfect tee box, this is where we would excavate the surface layer of soil and replace it with our high-quality turfing soil (a natural sandy loam blend has been developed to the optimum levels of nutrition making the soil the most fertile for desired lawn growth)
Pro Landscape Tip: To avoid wastage and improve your garden further, when replacing current soil with the Premium Topsoil for lawns, use the soil to create raised beds or flower borders creating more of an impact with your planted areas.