So much so trial and error that I will do my best to make sense of it all, as the timelines may get a bit haywire. I previously mentioned something about buying compost when I should have bought topsoil right? Well two problems arose from this:
1. Compost is very soft and just sunk in when you step on it while topsoil is made of tougher stuff like stones and organic matter. Better for the 'top' of your soil ...duhhhhh.
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2. Cat's kept sh*tting in my compost... Like for real it was the world's biggest litter box
I know there's a lot of cat lovers out there on the internet but I don't know what I would have done if I were to have got hold of those furry buggers. Despite the many little gifts from the local cats the grass grew and it looked alright but I knew I had to change the soil I was using. So I went to B&Q again but this time I bought a few bags of topsoil and repeated the seed process; the grass starts to grow... happy days.
I also removed the plants in the middle of the garden and transported them to my flowerbed at the back where they will eventually thrive.
As I told you before I don't really like to spend £, sometimes it's not a choice but it comes in handy when you have free supplies you can call upon. So after digging my life away in the back garden it was rewarding to be able to utilise a lot of the topsoil in the front. I pushed wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of bloody heavy clay soil to the front and spread it out over the lower parts of the lawn. I broke the soil up into smaller pieces and stomped the yard (pun intended). You may notice some white powder on the soil in the pic to the left... that is because the entire cast of Antz wanted to pay a visit but it unfortunately wasn't a happy ending in this movie.
Once the soil had been compressed I layered more bought topsoil to give the grass seed a better shot at germinating, watered the seeds and crossed my fingers it would work. When I knew my soil recycling technique had been successful I pretty much just repeated the process in various areas to get the lawn as level as possible. I'll admit my lawn looked more like Frankenstein's lawn with all the random patches. With all the uneven areas I couldn't really mow the grass either, so I had long green grass in some areas and short dying grass in others. The one main positive was that the newly grown grass looked super healthy and I knew that if I could achieve those results over the whole lawn, mission: 'Old Trafford' would be a success.
*** No cat's were harmed in the making of this blog post***
[ GARDENING TIP ] The method's I've used here really aren't the best but it really did save me a bit of money. One big mistake I made was to use 2 different grass seeds. I recommend that if you are trying to revive your lawn use one grass seed type and spread it all over the lawn, not just in one place. This way you avoid the 'Frankenstein' effect where you have grass growing at different speeds or even sometimes being completely different colours. Also in order to achieve a level lawn you should really hire a lawn roller. It will make your life a lot easier and you won't be the crazy person stomping around in your front garden.
