Converting woodland to lawn

[extrapairofhands]

Hi - great website and I am hoping you guys can help a daft englishman out! I am about to purchase a couple of acres of woodland of which I plan to turn about 1/2 an acre into lawn. The floor of the woodland obviously has a lot of fallen rotten timber which I will clear by hand and the few trees I do intend to drop I will grind out the stumps. However there is extensive coverage of ivy throughout the floor. I have a mid mount finish mower and rotavator on my subcompact kubota. I am nervous of using the mower in case i do come across something unseen (eg a raised root) so was thinking a flail would be better. Alternatively do I go straight to my rotavator and just mash up the ivy. What I want to get to is a flat seedbed for me to then lawn seed. Just wondering what your thoughts would be on the kit to hire. I live in the UK and the soil is pretty light - not rock strewn like you guys seem to all have!

 

[TripleR]

My inclination would be to first go with a broad spectrum herbicide to kill off the existing vegetation and then till the ground. Get a soil sample to determine the right mix of fertilizer and lime application and go from there. I use a broadcast seeder and drag, but there are other methods you might want to try such as a spray mix of seed, nutrients and straw applied by a professional.

Often times "new ground" such as this will benefit from running a subsoiler to break up the hard pan, but a small tractor would be hard pressed to do this at much depth, so deep tilling may be the best you can do.

Good luck, I am sure others will have more ideas.

 

[Egon]

Will the tree cover inhibit lawn growth?

 

[MarkV]

Welcome to the forum. Our plants are most likely different than yours so local advice would be best. Here I would spray the Ivy to kill and then till in. Ivy roots easily and spreads quickly here so I think tilling it in might spread it.

MarkV

 

[extrapairofhands]

I was going to spray with a weedkiller to try and get rid of the nettles and other weeds but I know from bitter experience that ivy is pretty resilient stuff.

Getting the seed to take will I'm sure be pretty tough but I have a shady lawn seed mixture ordered and the other trees aren't too dense.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

If the trees are very large, you wont be able to do any plowing or tilling due to the roots.
It may be best to hire a bulldozer to take it ALL out before you start to landscape and plant