My son has recently bought a new house in Bracknell. The back garden has been cleared but weeds have now grown back. I am helping him to design a new garden. He wants a lawn.

Can you tell me what I will need to hire to dig the soil before levelling it and laying turf.
Is it a cultivator that I need and can you please advise me which is the type I should ask for at the hire shop.

There's more about preparing ground for lawns in our feature 'Create & care for lawns - the basics'.

However, after you've killed off/dug up any perennial weeds, yes, you could use a cultivator to dig up the area if you don't fancy forking through the ground. Remember you're not planting potatoes, just stirring up the surface, so don't set the cultivator to work too deeply, which would make it very difficult to tread and level successfully, and probably create large clods too if you have heavy soil.

There are two types of cultivator - those that have drive wheels and those that don't. The latter draw themselves forward as the tines rotate, and you control the forward speed by holding the handles firmly and attempting to walk slowly (but don't stand still otherwise the tines will dig down and down). So choice depends on the state of your back, and also on the size of the plot. The wheel-driven machines are for the wide open spaces and are used to cultivate commercial greenhouses and outside plots.

Good luck.