North facing front lawn in poor condition. Advice.

Bobson Dugnutt

Looking for advice on how to improve our front lawn. We bought a house 2 years ago, and made the decision to grow fruit and vegetables in most of the back garden. Successful enough, with the limitations of being a north facing garden with neighbouring walls. Sort of rewilding the rest of it through planting native species in beds etc.

What to do with the front though? It's old, unloved, bumpy and mossy as hell. It's a small front garden. 4m by 8m. I fired on some iron of sulphate two weeks ago, and have ran through it with a rake a few times. I also used a pitch fork to puncture and sort of "lift" the soil underneath.

Without getting rid of the existing lawn, is there anything we can do to ensure it looks ok this summer? I'll get to a full job on it in time, but not the priority at the moment. There is a bit of a keeping up with the neighbours in the area we purchased.

Should I just spray roundup on the lot and start again? Can I improve the surface of an existing lawn through sanding/composting the lawn that is already there? Any point in just getting a ton of topsoil after doing a roundup job on it, and leveling it out this year?

tampopo

Step 1: no Roundup

Then aerate the heck out of it with a fork. Adding sand would aid drainage alright. Which could alleviate the moss. But that will return if suitable conditions persist.

ShadowSA

Don't add Roundup.

Mow regularly and maybe oversead with lawn no 2 and cover with some topsoil.

ShadowSA

And do not mow for a while after overseeding.