By Snoopdog
shropshire,
United Kingdom 
to sow grass seed, i want to sow grass seed on a neglected small lawn without using weed killer my plan is to strim down to soil rake cuttings off then use rotavator working to about 4" deep and raking the rough stuff away leveling off the ground and sowing seed will the old grass grow fast enough to come up and smother new seed or must i kill grass off first
2 May, 2014
Answers
It's amazing how forgiving a lawn can be Snoopdog after you have chopped it about and disturb it.
When I moved into my house the lawn in my back garden was very uneven with bumps and ditches. I used a spade to slice the lumps off, removed some soil away from under it and put the clump of grass back in the same place. I filled the ditches with soil, tamped it down with my feet and the grass grew through.
With a sprinkle of grass seed here and there and a bit more soil thrown about to level the small indentations the lawn grew lovely. All I had to do then was treat it once a year with Verdon and spot treat any weeds that came through now and again with the same.
When my kids grew up and I got a a bit older I decided that I didn't really need a lawn any more just to mow it once a week so I got rid of my lawn front and back and planted things a bit more low maintenance.
2 May, 2014
I'm confused Snoop - you say you're going to rotovate the area to 4 inches deep - are you not then going to remove the chopped up clods of turf and reseed the whole lot, so that there's no old grass left?
The other thing is, rotovation is not a good idea if you have any pernicious weeds present in the grass - the rotovator chops up the roots and spreads the weed even further around.
2 May, 2014