Bad lawn, cure?

Leif

My lawn was atrocious. In the spring I aerated it, and spread the stuff that feeds, kills weeds and kills moss. It looks much better, but is growing like mad. Unfortunately there is a lot of thick grass which grows much faster than the normal grass, leaving large tufts, which looks awful. Is there any hope? In the front I might be able to dig out some turf, where the thick grass grows, patch with soil and reseed. But the back, about 17m by 17m is awful. Also, there is more Bird's Foot trefoil than grass in many areas, although that does not bother me, oddly enough. I don't mind clover, trefoil etc, but I hate dandelions and bindweed.

Were I to reseed the lawn, would it be a case of glyphosate, wait a few months, spread seed, wait? There would be a risk to the flower beds from the glyphosate. Or rotovate? (Surely rotovating leaves grass near the surface which will just regrow.) I should add that the soil is very very stony, being a clay loam and full of flints, some 6" across, though most are smaller.

In one small area I used a fork to pull away the turf, patched with soil, and reseeded, and it looks great. But doing that everywhere would a) lead to a large amount of duff turf to dispose of, b) cost a fortune in new soil, and c) be hard work. In this case the old turf went into a septic tank, but that is now full of stones and turf. So duff turf would have to be piled up somewhere, or carried to the local tip.

Yorkie1

I've got exactly the same problem with my lawn. The coarser grass is slightly lighter in colour, thicker bladed, and it 'flowers'. It's spreading in certain areas of my lawn.

I'm debating whether to try to paint glyphosate onto some of those blades of grass, but it's a thankless task to imagine and we haven't had a reliably dry day recently - and I need to find the right balance between having long enough grass to apply the chemical yet not too long 2 weeks later when I come to mow the lawn.

Will be interested to see others' responses.

wallbash

You need to make some choices ,
How good a lawn do you want ..... bowling green / doesn't embarrass me.
How much money do I spend
How big are my muscles
How long can I wait for the results.

My lawn was 5 x 6 metres , had rabbits for years ...... total mess.
I wanted a very good lawn , I was willing to wait and I spent over £600
Ps no muscles .

Lawn was killed last December. rotavated twice in the early spring .
Leveled and turfed with Roto Turf??

Hose pipe came into force ......... then it started to rain for weeks
Result , a wonderful lawn .

Ps , I would throw some seeds down and cut the lawn very often , seems to work on my golf course.