A lawn you inherited, and the order to do things in

Look before you buy anything

Four observations, made over a couple of weeks, decide almost every purchase that follows.

Walk it. Spongy underfoot means thatch — a layer of dead material between the leaf and the soil. That points at a scarifier, later.

Push something in. A screwdriver into damp soil should go in with modest effort. If it will not, the ground is compacted, and that points at aeration and at keeping heavy machines off it.

Watch it after rain. Water standing on the surface for hours on ground that is not obviously low is the same compaction question from the other side.

Note where the sun is. A strip that gets three hours of light will never be the same lawn as one that gets ten, and no product changes that. Knowing which parts are shaded stops you from buying the same solution twice.

The first mow

Whatever the lawn is, the first cut is the highest setting the machine has, and the second — a week later — one step lower. Never take more than about a third of the height at once.

That single discipline fixes more first-year lawns than any product does, and it costs nothing.

If the lawn has genuinely been left for months, expect three passes over a fortnight rather than two, and expect to collect rather than mulch: there is too much material for a deck to disperse.

What to buy first, and what to wait on

Buy: a mower with a cutting height you can change in one movement. On a garden with beds and corners, a narrower deck beats a wider one. On a slope or with a heavy machine, a drive earns itself.

Wait on: a scarifier, until you have confirmed thatch and reached the right season. An aerator, until you have confirmed compaction. A fertiliser programme, until you have mown a few times and seen where the lawn is thin. A robot, until you know the shape of the garden in use rather than on paper.

Do not buy at all until you have looked: a sprinkler, which is a purchase about water pressure rather than about lawns, and any moss product, which treats a symptom you have not yet diagnosed.

The one thing to do this season

Mow regularly at a sensible height and leave everything else. A lawn that has been cut weekly at 40 mm for a summer is a different lawn by autumn, and it is a lawn you can then diagnose properly.

Autumn is the better window for renovation anyway — warm soil, reliable moisture, less weed competition — so a first summer spent observing costs nothing and is not a delay.

What this site can and cannot tell you

It can tell you what a machine’s figures mean and which of them the maker measured. It can tell you what is on a shelf and what the listings leave out.

It cannot tell you what your lawn needs, because that is a question about your ground, your light and your climate. Every page here that reaches a conclusion says what it assumed to get there.