Suggest you start as soon as, we did the same and its unbelievable the amount of time it will take you t
o clear stones. Dont try and bury them as they will rise to the surface and cause untold damage to your mower

Hi, welcome to GoY, firstly if the ground is just mud, you should really find out what the cause is, as it will still be there after you've laid the lawn, and try to solve the problem before you do anything.
Secondly, check if you have any fleshy rooted perennial weeds, such as dock, dandelions, or couch grass, as using a rotovator on these will just make them more abundant, because any piece of root left in the ground will grow into a new plant, better to dig these out by hand,trying to get as much root as possible.
Thirdly if you prepare the ground thoroughly byeither rotovating or digging by hand, then raking to a fine tilth, then walking all over it on your heels to firm the soil, and then raking level, removing any stones etc, you don't need to put top soil down, you can just leave for a few weeks for the soil to settle, rake level again, and lay the turves straight onto a firm level surface, without paying for top soil, Derek.

Yes, it can be a mistake to just rotavate, rake and turf before discovering why its muddy now. If the ground is all mud because its badly drained and you firm it before its dried out you might get a very hard compacted surface which wil inhibit good grass growth, or alternatively it might stay boggy and grow lots of moss. Time spent now in good preparation may save you a lot of fiddling about afterwards trying to put it right. Never be in too much of a hurry for results if you want good ones.

The ground is muddy as it is new build - so it will be rotavated already. I would rake out as much of the stones as possible and then level the area as much as possible by walking on the bare soil. No need to be perfect as you need a few ton of sand to get the lawn level. Why wait till April- March is a great time for lawn laying.

Hi thanks for the responses, started digging out by hand today. Soil isn't all that boggy after racking etc must have just seemed it over the wet winter months.

Ok, so will top soil not be necessary for the turf to take? Garden has a bit of a slope towards the bottom so was hoping to try and level out as much as possible.

Do you think it is worth getting a skip for the stones? There is a lot of them, and just seem to keep coming.

Thanks in advance

Depends if you are thinking of doing any concreting for a path or a shed base for example, unless you really do have a skipful! They can be useful as hardcore if you are. I think sometimes there is a little stone making factory under the surface, its amazing where they keep coming from!

What a relief to find it isn't boggy after all. Top soil is often just what's been removed from another building site unless you make sure to get the good quality stuff. Unless your soil is rubbish it shouldn't be necessary.

Yes well we have got a 30m2 patio in our design, so should just keep all the stones for the hardcore of that? Getting a friend to lay it as that is way out of my skill range.

Oh I'll be happy when the garden is done!

You do not need top soil for lawn. You use a layer of sand to level on top of the bare soil.

I never use sand on the top Botanic - if the soil is friable with a good tilth, it shouldn't be necessary. However, one other piece of advice to add to Derekm's instructions as to how to lay turf and that is, get some Growmore, and broadcast it across the area just before you lay the turf, enough so it looks like a light snow. If you want more info and step by step instructions, get yourself a copy of D.G. Hessayon's The Lawn Expert - only costs around a tenner, or you could probably find one in the local library to borrow.

...and also, can i suggest you do a proper double dig because my last garden was turfed (new build) on top of about 6" of topsoil, under which was solid compacted clay where the builders' machines had been going back and forth during the build. It made gardening there an extreme challenge, as the garden was a bog, even though it had been a well cultivated potato farm. If I ever had that challenge again (God forbid...I'm never moving again!) I would refuse the turf and get something to dig it over really deep.....not a small garden rotavator. In parts of the garden there were feet deep patches of builders soil. Incidentally, I found plants preferred that to bog! Good luck, it will be lovely when it's done...keep us posted with your progress! We love a good before and after blog on here! :))

It just looks too wet currently - dig it over and remove stones by all means, but I'd wait for it to dry out a bit more before preparing it for turf. As air temperatures rise over the next couple of months, that should help it to dry out, assuming we don't have tons of rain -if you still can't achieve a tilth on it, then you might need to add sharp grit to the top spade's depth.