Yeah, I ended up filling 3 large sulo bins and have a large pile of thatch that would fill a trailer... so probably 2 trailer loads.
I ended up getting pretty aggressive with the height of the scraifying machine. Was probably cutting about 10mm below the ground level. After that it looked terrible with piles of thatch all over the lawn, and then raked that up and then ran the scarifier in a perpendicular direction and took almost as much again. I then raked and it still looked pretty bad. After that I ran the rotary mower at low height over it, and it looked pretty neat if not brown. Ran the rotary mower over it several times reducing height to lowest setting. It then looked neat... but dead!!
I ended up getting a top soil mix. The place I planned to buy sand from was shut for Christmas. I got some flower power and was planning to buy some bricky sand but he convinced me to use their top soil mix which was 80% sand. What was delivered was very dark brown. I am not convinced it was 80% sand, but too hard to change it, so used it. I have learned a lesson here on following advice of drones in shops. Top soiled and levelled and then fertilised. Have been watering often. It looks like a neat dark brown lawn now, but already after only a few days the grass is starting to come through.
Unfortunately some neighbours called out Sydney Water for a problem, and one of the utes decided to park on the newly levelled lawn. Not just one side of the car on the edge... Whole car on the lawn, so I am now sporting a nice trench on the lawn. I don't lose my temper much.... but this time!!....... Have done my best to fix the damage. I suspect I will get another tonne of sand in future to fix the levelling.
I will post some photos once it has recovered a bit more.
Cheers,
Adrian
