Share
Clueless dad with another baby on the way, I'm looking to try and wrangle this into shape so that it can be at least useable in a couple of months.
Down in Melbourne so has been a very dry summer so far, and it has just become dead and overrun with weeds.
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @PdotMALONEY. It's excellent to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about restoring a lawn.
Looking at the condition of the area, the most realistic and time-effective way forward is unfortunately not to try and revive what’s there. The lawn is largely dead and heavily overrun with multiple weeds, including grassy weeds that cannot be selectively removed without killing what little grass remains. Trying to rehabilitate this would take a very long time and a lot of effort, and it still wouldn’t give you a usable space in your timeframe.
The best approach here would be to start fresh. I would recommend spraying the entire area with a glyphosate-based product such as Roundup to kill everything off. Make sure you follow the label instructions carefully and wear appropriate PPE when mixing and spraying, including gloves, long sleeves, long pants, enclosed shoes, eye protection and a mask. After about a week, everything should be dead and ready to remove. This is a non-residual product in the lawn so it will be well and truely gone by the time your little one arrives.
Once it has died off, go through with a spade and remove as much of the dead grass and weed material as possible. Some of the tougher clumps may need a mattock to break them out properly. After that, turn the soil over to loosen it up and improve aeration, then add a fresh layer of topsoil, somewhere around 20 to 50 millimetres, and level it out.
From there, if your aim is to have something usable in a couple of months, laying buffalo turf is the best option. Buffalo turf in particular is a good family-friendly choice and will give you an instant lawn once laid. While it costs more upfront than seed, it will save you months of waiting and frustration. Seeding would likely take three to four months at a minimum before it starts to resemble a usable lawn, and even then it would still be quite fragile.
Here's a helpful guide: How to lay turf.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Mitchell
