Last year I returfed my back garden, I watered it as recommended and it looked lovely for a couple of months. However once the weather turned cooler and the wet weather started it has gone yellow and in some places slimy.

My garden has very poor drainage and after heavy rain is squelchy and a bit bog-like.

My question is this - do I need to rip it up and start again, adding possibly topsoil and sand to try and help drainage or will I be able to rescue it by raking up the bad bits and re-seeding those areas??

Any help/advice would be much appreciated:thumbsup:

Thanks!

The fact you say 'slimy' may mean you've got moss growing....

If the drainage is bad then you might run the risk of rot on the roots - the problem with a lot of gardens is that the 'topsoil' in the garden is just a few feet of stuff dumped there by the builders, often on top of miscellaneous crap. If the underlying material under the topsoil was compacted clay or similar then laying sand and such might not help that much.

You certainly need to have some reasonably aerated soil under the turf - raking and reseeding may work but it really depends what you intend the lawn to be used for.

If for kids to play on, then fine; if as a well manicured 'feature' then I think you might be looking at re-turfing.

Joe

The 'soil' in the garden is not generally in abundance, there was a lot of rubble mixed in with it when I stripped the old turf back. I tried to get as much of the rubbish out as possible but it was still not very good.

The slimy patches look very much as thought the grass has died and gone rotten - so as you say it could be root rot.

The garden is mainly for the kids to play on but I was also hoping that it would look at least halfway decent too:P

The other thing to consider is the nature of the turf used.

There are some turfs available that are designed for landscaping 'less than perfect' areas.

Are there any 'rings' or white threads in the remaining grass? The other thing to watch is fungul infections.

I bought stadium turf - as the turf suppliers said it was the most hardwearing, not seen any rings or white threads on the remaining grass, just yellow patches and the slimy rotting bits:(

That's the stuff to go for.....

Did you get someone in to lay teh turf or do it yourself?

I have to say that I need to do my own lawn again and will get someone in to do the job and take the blame...:)

What time of the year was it laid?

Joe

Me and a friend did it (he'd already done his front and back garden a couple of years ago and they look great - so I really can't blame him;) ).

It was laid May last year and it was great til about September when it started looking ropey, now it just looks appalling - I could cry:(

Ah well, I'll try raking and re-seeding in late March (I gather thats the right time - after the frosts have gone:confused: ) and see what happens.

Thanks for your help Joe:clap:

A mate of mine had a real problem with water drainage over her garden, she was advised to dig channels in the garden, in either or both directions ( across and/or with the flow of water) and fill them with sand.
Then turf can be relaid.
She also had a plastic drainage tube put in a few places in the garden so that water is drained off to places it doesn't matter or where is can be used to nourish drier areas.
That's all I know.

If there is a lot of rubble in the ground that isn't going to help in the least so before turfing the idea is to prepare the ground using a rotovator to really break the soil up to a decent depth. This also means that any stones, bricks or lumps of concrete can be removed at the same time. Then a lot of raking to get the soil as smooth as possible before turfing otherwise it'll start to look uneven after a while. This could mean that in any dips and hollows the grass will die as it's a water trap. You can remove damaged sections and then break the ground up and then either reseed or returf, it just depends how many bits need doing as it may be quicker and less fraught to start from scratch again.

The drainage troughs and pipe is a good idea - sometiems the rubble can be useful provided it's small and level - it provides air spaces and such - a bit like chips of clay in a plant pot.

The rotavator approach is definietly worth a shot as well - I once dug my lawn the hard way - never again....:)

I have this horrible feeling we're heading in to returf territory!

It kind of looks that way Joe
:(
Think I will rotovate and returf in september after the 6 week hols are done with so that I haven't got both kids charging over new turf:)

Guess I'll try the filling in the bare patches tho' -if only in an attempt to make it look a little bit better so that I don't feel like crying every time I look at it;)

I have a very clay garden (and squelchy grass during winter).

I've found that the soil has been drastically improved after slinging last year's grow bags on it for the past couple of years, and just letting the worms get on with it.

Raking and seeding is a good idea, but choose your seed carefully. You can buy huge bags of compacted compost which should do the trick, if you don't have any 'used' organic matter to recycle.