Advice on raking a lawn prior to reseeding

[seaweed]

Hello there,

An elderly relative of mine has asked me to rake out their tired old lawn which has various weeds and moss in it prior to them reseeding it, basically he hasnt got the strength to do this kind of work anymore.
As someone who has very little garden experience could you advise me on the best way to do this? what kind of specific rake would you use for the job?, also would it be best to cut the grass prior to raking? as he has just asked me to rake it without cutting.
I`ve looked on the internet and there are all kinds of power rakes etc which seem a bit over the top for what i need, so would a standard lawn rake suffic?

Thanks in advance.

[mikew1972]

How big an area are we talking. Throughly raking anything more than the smallest area by hand is very hard work. I'd say it would be well worth buying a cheap electric lawn rake.
Yes I would trim the grass before raking.
Sounds like this bit is his problem but simply raking a lawn before reseeding isn't adequate. Ideally tou'd want to rotovate it etc unless you only plan to re-seed a small section of the lawn.

[James Morris]

Hi Seaweed,

I hope I have caught you in time cos this is bit of an old post, but don´t rake too deeply. I made that mistake last year when I resowed my garden, and 12 months later I am still waiting for the first blade of grass to appear.

Most times it is easier with a hand rake, and unless you are going to use the power rake frequently yourself, I wouldn´t bother buying one for the sake of one job.

Anyway, hope I´m not too late.

James

[MFCGMFC]

a pre-seeder fertilizer may improve the chances of germination depending on the seed and nutrients in the lawn etc

if that dont work then all you can do is lift it and re-turf

what seed are you using?

[seaweed]

Hi there,

Thanks for the replays.

Raked out all the thatch couple of weeks ago by hand, and had the blisters to show for it, just noticed the replys!

After I`d raked it, I left it to him, but regarding the seed, he kept mentioning "Timothy seed"??? does this mean anything to you?

thanks again.

[MFCGMFC]

Timothy, I learned about it in my first year but never used it at my work so can't really comment

Why did he specifically use that? Any reason?

If there's gonna be a lot of traffic ie kids playing on it etc he could use a hardier grass like ryegrass (lolium perenne)

Let us know how you get on mate