Laying turf

This really depends on tha soil you are laying it on. Is it newly filled and was deep or you only need to bring up level ,say, 3 inches. If its deep it will settle. Have you laid a lawn before, most important things, get soil as level as you can. Keep joints tight. Water well first few days if no rain. Get a few scaffold planks.

okedoke wrote: »

Thanks - it’s almost all existing lawn that I’m stripping turf off and digging over or rotovating so it will be disturbed soil and I guess settle over time

After rotovating "heel toe it" by that I mean put all your weight on your heel then your tow as you walk over it. Provided the soil is reasonably dry you won't over compress it but that will stop you getting soft spots from rotovating more deeply and fluffing up the soil more in some areas.

The soil in the turf wants to be a tad higher than the patio (not lower) then once a year cut the edges back with an edging iron. If you run the edging iron flush with the patio edge you get a nice neat edge.

One inch higher would be the standard spec for the work (I used to do landscaping) but that really is a little to high.

Thats the way we used to do it. I prefer a little lower so you don't have the full inch above the patio. What will happen is the grass on the edge will get trodden on and spread over the patio. The more you have above the patio the quicker it will spread. So I used to go for about half an inch. Now an inch looks good if you keep it regularly edged off with an edging iron but may want doing a little more often than you want. Also with half an inch you can normally get away with putting the mower wheels on the patio as you go around the edges without having to alter the height. A full inch can get scabbed unless you put more of the mower on the patio than the grass when edging off. Straddling the edge of the grass with the mower also helps stop the grass growing over the patio as the lift action of the air flow under the deck sucks up grass growing out over the patio.

You definitely don't want the grass below the edge of the patio as that doesn't look right and means you need to get the strimmer out to cut the grass up close to the edge of the patio - unnecessary effort.

Obviously after firming up the soil you rake to level but if you find you are raking a lot of soil into deep hollows then heel toe again before the final rake over.