Sowing New Lawn

Ta me anseo

Hello all!

I'm hopefully going to seed my new lawn in the back garden. So, a couple of questions....

1. I know I should really wait until April to sow grass, but I'm struggling to keep the neighbours bloody cats (see angry rant about cats thread :rolleyes:) off the area and will need to cover it with mesh or something to keep them off it. I would therefore like to get the grass sowed and growing as quickly as I can. Will it do any harm sowing now? My thoughts are that if it doesn't take well, I can just sow some more in April anyway...

2. The area suffers from terribly damp/badly drained soil. Me adding a patio area at the bottom of the garden hasn't helped matters at all. Despite my best efforts, it was almost impossible do dig down to any depth at all for various reasons, in fact, the center is still higher than I would like. I have been able to do nothing more than add a inch or so of topsoil to the area, because of the aforementioned level issues. There was grass growing over the whole area before I changed everything although it was fairly mossy as it doesn't get a full days sun either. So, what grass would you recommend for a shady/wet area with compact sticky soil? I'm doing my best to break it up and mix the topsoil into it, but it's very tough work!

Thanks!

prospect

Still very frosty, so I wouldn't bother sowing just yet.

Also,
RE: drainage, there is an excellent post on the 'Common Topics' sticky, you'll see a link 'Drainage Start To Finish'. It is well worth the read.

Ta me anseo

Thanks for that! Very interesting thread!

Unfortunately, it's way too late for me to do anything like that. At least, not without ripping up my new patio and path! Patio is on a full mortar bed so it would jack hammer and skip time....