Any tips on how to level a lawn

lovebug_rita

Hi,
Can anyone help please.
We bought a new house last year and it came with a lovely but lumpy 72ft lawn !
Can anyone please tell me how i can resolve this as I feel like Im going to sprain my ankles every time I walk on it !
Thanks,
Rita

greyteam1959

Hire a vibrating roller or a 'wacker' plate from your local hire shop and give it a good pounding down.
If you are going to do this do it ASAP before the ground dries out and becomes too hard.
Only other solution is to take the turf off cultivate level compact and the re lay new turf

tanith

I don't think a 'lawn' would survive any pounding with a whacker plate , a heavy roller might help while the ground is wet , if not then its level it and returf or reseed ... as previous poster says...

lovebug_rita

thanks, would a heavy roller kill the current grass ?

ericthekidstoner

it shouldn't do - unless you do when it's serious wet (i.e. standing water!). my landscaper used it when he laid my new lawn

Strepsy

If you compound it then you will ruin the drainage I would have thought and will end up with the lawn having waterlogging problems. I think rotivation would be better but it's a big job and you wouldn't be able to walk on it for a while. I'm not an expert in the slightest though, maybe check out a gardening forum with someone experience with lawns.

tanith

The best thing would be to try the heavy roller idea first (not sure if you can hire one or not)if not find a friendly gardner who will lend you one...:T then if it doesn't work you will have to dig the whole thing over level it and returf or reseed but it is a big job...

mikeywills

When you say its really lumpy do you mean small patches about a hand size or larger areas say about two feet square. If its only small patches then you can do small remedial repairs by cutting, lifting, and folding back the existing turf with a spade, taking out some of the soil below and folding back the turf. Add a little water and some soil if the joint doesn't match. The reverse is true if you have a hollow too just put a little soil back in. This can take a while but it all depends on how big the lumps are.

It sounds like the soil wasn't prepared very well prior to the lawn being laid.

lovebug_rita

The lumps are small, bit bigger than hand size though. Its just a pain as I loose my footing often and nearly sprain my ankles !
I think I will try some of the suggestions above.

My dad suggested adding small handfuls of compost with lawn seed and gradually letting it level out, does this work ?

kippers

You would have to bring the whole lawn up to the hight of the highest lump...so i don't think it's a good idea.

I had lumps like that in my lawn when i moved in and i could understand why as the lawn had been down for years, so i carefully pulled bag the lawn over a lump and found red ants! I dug out the nest and returned the lawn. We still have red ants though but no lumps.

navig8r

Whacker plates and heavy rollers are for tarmac not lawns and will do more damage . are the lumps soft? if so then a very light roller ,if hard then your Dads suggestion or something along those lines may be the best course of action..it is possible that they have been caused by wormcasts that the grass has grown over .

Dave