Autumn gardening - Lawn laying

This is the time of year to lay a new lawn - and sadly, many of us will have to invest in a new lawn after the awful floods which will have made many gardens too rank and deficient in topsoil to recover.

You need at least six inches of topsoil to grow a lawn, which means buying additional topsoil if you don't think you've got enough, or if you need to raise the height of the lawn - it's a good idea to ensure the topsoil, rather than the lawn, is at the same level as patios and paths so that the turf sits proud of the hard surface which can make mowing (and water runoff) much easier.

Dig over your soil, removing any weeds and stones and then rake the surface to a rough level. Now you should walk over the entire area using a toe to heel gait to press down the soil which ensures you don't have soft spots or big stones you didn't notice earlier - giving care to this preparation stage will guarantee that you avoid uneven settling of the soil later on. Now add a general fertiliser and mix it into the top inch and a half of soil. Rake over this surface once more, until you have a fine tilth.

Remember that wastage from cutting and shaping turfs is higher for irregularly shaped lawns, just as it is for oddly shaped rooms, so you may need to order more turf than you fist think. Start laying the turf along a straight side, made with string, pegs and a spirit level butting the ends of the turfs closely together. On each succeeding row, make sure you stagger the joints as you would in brickwork, making sure that there are no gaps. If you need to adjust the position of the turf after unrolling, always push it - if you put it, stretching will occur which means the roots will be weak and the lawn there will tend to baldness. Always work from planks laid on the soil to avoid making footprints and to help you check your level.

Autumn lawn laying photograph by jdj150, used under a creative commons attribution licence