I'm about to plant my lawn for the third time. The first time it grew well but it was so out of level you could break an ankle (bad advice from an inexperienced grass guy). The second time I paid $2K to a landscaper and he planted a really horrible grass mix, a tall rye that made it look like a field, so I'm not happy that I have to do it again. This time I'm doing it myself, though I'm getting people in to do parts of the job - not the whole job. I've done quite a lot of research this time, talked to a bunch of people, so I'm reasonably confident with my approach.

My lawn's 160 square meters. Half of that is flat out the back. 1/4 is on a slight slope on the front to the street, enough to be annoying but easy to mow. 1/4 is behind the front fence and is flat. I have hoses, sprinklers, and timers that will irrigate on any schedule I choose. There's decent drainage in the lawn.

I've applied roundup to my lawn, it's pretty much dead, other than a few weeds that I'll dig out. It's got a super hard surface given all the sun and lack of rain. Our plan is to plough (plow for Americans) it down to 10cm, as it has good topsoil there but dead grass on top, and it's clay from 20cm down. Once it's ploughed you're meant to wait a couple of weeks for the weeds to come up, then roundup them, to avoid the weed seeds in the lawn germinating with the grass. You can just let the weeds grow and pull them out later, which we might do because we're getting close to winter.

Grass grows well in March, quite well in April, but by May it's pretty chilly and grass doesn't grow as well. So getting things done soon is reasonably important to avoid having a big dirt patch all winter.

My main question is should I hire a plough and a roller myself from hirequip ($250 delivered plus two days hard work for myself and a couple of friends), or should I pay a trusted landscaper $900 to do it for me? How hard and time consuming is ploughing and rolling? I have 2/3 of a weekend free next weekend, about a day and a half, other than that my weekends are pretty full. The extra $650 wouldn't be particularly significant to me, I work as an IT contractor, but I don't like to waste money either.

Once the soil's prepared we'll probably use hydroseed. It grew well last time, it costs more than seed but it grows faster with fewer spots that don't take.

Happy to hear other thoughts :)