stony lawn help!

allabella

I bought a house and the previous owner had put a membrane on the back lawn and gravel on top. I wanted to re-instate a lawn so I moved 2 tonne of gravel (I filled 2 tonne builders rubble sacks) by hand. I destroyed by back though. Had to take 2 weeks off work and have to do physio yoga every week now.

I put down grass seed and grass did grow but my lawn is still really stony. My son who is 4 years old can't run barefoot on the grass and if he tripped over on the grass he would cut himself.

What can I do to get rid of the gravel?

All my money went into buying the house so I cant imagine I can hire a professional company to sort it and I can't do it myself with my back. the garden is about 60ft long and 15ft wide so its quite a big space./

Maybe I could buy topsoil or something?

Any suggestions very welcome.

Thanks

Harry Palmr

Sounds like like you needed to think about this a bit more than you did!

I'd not move the gravel out of the site. Use it as a "feature" by filling some raised-bed style wood frame containers with it and then sinking pots into it an grow some hardy shrubs in them. Or maybe make a gravel path or border when the lawn in fixed.

As for the lawn area, it sounds like you'll have to remove the stones by hand.

As ever on this forum some pix would be helpful

cnocbui

If you top it with 'soil' it will quite likely be 40% stones anyway, like the stuff I ended up with and raked wheelbarrow loads of stones out of:rolleyes:

I think top dressing with sand to bury the stones would do it, but getting the sand in place is the shifting tons of gravel problem all over again.

blackbox

After a while (maybe 1-2 years) the gravel will have disappeared into the grass or the grass will have formed a mat over the gravel with no further action needed.

...of course you may not be able to wait that long.

_Brian

Feed the grass appropriately and indeed it will soon knit in well and the stones will be less of a problem.

I'd take the presence of the stones to mean the soil may be less than excellent so do some reading on lawn care.

Low nitrogen feeding in autumn, regular light higher nitrogen feeds every 4-6 weeks over the summer.
Start cutting high in spring, lower cut over the summer moving back to a raised cut for autumn. Never scalp the lawn real short.