Starting a New Lawn from Seed in NZ – A Beginner’s Guide to Ryegrass

New to all of this and planning to seed a large lawn in Naseby, Central Otago.

Total area is about 1,000 sqm in ryegrass, as we know it will grow here. High sun exposure and wind at this time of year.

We have 3 sections, one which is flat and 2 sloped.

We know we need to level the ground, remove stones (of which there are thousands!) and rake up the surface layer, which has been compacted by winter snows.

We have killed off all the weeds and plan to use Etho and Meso at the time of seeding, along with starter fertiliser – all ordered and promptly delivered today.

A few questions from the novices:

1. How small do we go on stone clearing?
2. How deep do we need to rough up the surface soil?
3. Do we spray the Etho and Meso before seeding or after?
4. Do we use the starter fertiliser before or after seeding?
5. Using our irrigation, how long should we run the pop-ups initially? I read we should water even up to hourly when dry and hot, but how long for?

Any other tips and tricks would be most appreciated!