replanting a bad lawn in bad soil...

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by no kudzu

Sod properly laid will be worth the effort and expense.

which leads to the question: "what do sods & men have in common?"

[CrueRulz]

Originally Posted by HB2HSV

which leads to the question: "what do sods & men have in common?"

Lay it right, and it will serve you for a lifetime?

[CrueRulz]

Speaking of...I recently moved from Southern California to NE Ohio. WOW is gardening different here! I realize the drought here is pretty bad, but it's all in perspective...in Orange County, this would be a rainy summer.

OP, where are you located?

[Butterfly4u]

Tim,
since you have 3/4 of an acre, unless you are rich, don't go for the sod.
Depending on your budget, if you don't have thousands right now,
Just do the front this fall.
Start in zones.
We have been working on ours for the past 3 years now.
We are still working on it.
Remeber, you need alot of watering too, so unless you have sprinklers
you can time to water the seeds, you will be using a regular sprinkler.
We have to use a regular good old fashioned sprinkler.
The fall is the time of year that all the crab grass starts to die off.
You don't have to kill it. It seeds like crazy and dies.
DONT TILL!
That is when you want to seed with your cool season grass.
kentucky blue is a slow growing grass, usually mixed with some kind of rye,
it spreads and repairs itself, but grows slowly. That is why they mix it with a
fast grower, like rye.
Fescue is a clumping grass, it doesn't spread like Kentucky Bluegrass, but
comes up fast. You have to choose what you want.
BUY the Best quality grass seed you can afford. IT MATTERS.
If you want, the second week of September, jsut start throwing down your
seed. Water for 2 weeks like crazy. JUST in front of house.
By the end of October, almost all your weeds will be dead.
Check on status of grass. You should have alot of grass by now.
You can keep seeding if you want. Don't forget to water
the young grass til it reaches freezing. Water it when it looks dry.
Then, next spring, put your manure down.
Lightly. In March. Then seed again. Water.
DOn't worry about the weeds til you get enough seeds to grow.
Dont' throw alot of chemicals down, you can keep seeding (it's all about
competition).
By the summer, let the grass grow 3 inches tall before you mow it.
Weeds hate tall grass, they can't get the sun.
Then next fall, start seeding again.
All over again, same routine. Aftger a couple years, you will ahve thick
grass that the weeds can't handle.
If weeds are growing in your lawn out front now, what makes you think
grass seeds won't grow?
Why do you think it so hard? See what happens.
Tilling is a nightmare. Not only are you pulling up all the weed seeds from
hell, but your yard will have to be leveled, which means another piece of equipment
to rent and do. The builder graded your lot, don't mess with that.
If you arent' happy with the grass growth by next summer, and you are
sure it is due to compaction, use baby shampoo on your lawn. YES, baby shampoo.
It works. Look it up online. But I don't think you will have a problem with
compaction.
Remember, seed, water, mow high in the summer months.
You will have a lawn in a couple years.
Or if you have thousands of extra dollars, you could have pros
sod it for you. If you do that, buy at least 3 regular sprinklers.
It needs LOTS of water.
Good luck to you!
It takes patience.

[Tdvelie3522]

Have new lawn with many bare spots and large weed-like grasses. Have been removing them by hand. Watering system went in one month after lawn was planted. No rain first three weeks. How do I get rid of weeds? Would weed killer do the trick now? Should I then overseeds? Help! Need advice. Thanks.

[NeonGecko]

Till. Don't till to 18" depth though - follow the advice about tilling your amendments in from the top. You cannot build a good lawn on top of compacted construction detritus. Kill the sod first by covering it with heavy duty CLEAR plastic. This will not only kill the grass, but many weed seeds in the top few inches of soil. Cover with the clear plastic again after tilling to kill off any weed seeds churned up in the tilling. This needs to be done when the weather is sunny and warm. Google "soil sterilization plastic". Many sites suggest using black plastic, but studies have shown that the soil heats up more and to a greater depth using clear plastic.

Don't be surprised if you come across ALL SORTS of junk under the sod. I once removed an entire bed sheet, some discarded siding, and some fiberglass insulation from an area of the yard where nothing seemed to grow properly. Just a couple of weeks ago, I found a table knife driven point down into a flower bed, with the handle a good 3" below the surface of the soil. I have NO IDEA what that was all about.

Rock removal is a pain and will leave you with sunken areas if you don't do it EVERYWHERE. That is a lot of work for 3/4 acre lot. You will have to pay someone to haul it away. The "rocks" you dig up will often be chunks of concrete, and in any case not generally suitable for making a rock garden, but evaluate what you end up with if you pursue this option - who knows, it may be usable. You will have to level the lawn after doing this. Which you will have to do anyway, for what its worth.

I agree with the poster who suggested more naturalistic beds and plantings and less lawn. You still need to prepare the soil appropriately, regardless.

After this is all done, you will need to get a soil roller and firm the soil evenly. I don't mean like it is now, hard as concrete - but so you don't get that situation of stepping onto the lawn and sinking ankle deep into it. If you don't roll the soil, you are likely to get uneven settling and neither seed nor sod will root properly. In fact you should roll the soil and then roll the sod (if you use sod) afterwards. This should be done when the soil is moist but not wet, in both cases.

Do it in sections. Unless you have a TON of money and can pay a team of landscapers to do all of this for you, I guess.

Soil sterilization using clear plastic beats killing the sod with Roundup on many levels. For one thing, this will break down the sod (sort of an on-site compost) so that it will add to your soil amendment. Roundup just leaves you with chunks of dead sod that won't break up very easily.

It's a big job. If I'm ever in a situation where we have a new house built again, they are NOT going to sod it until the site has been cleaned up properly - rather than letting them bury the trash under crap fill-dirt and then slapping sod on top. In the place where we are now, there are many spots where I can't drive a screwdriver into the actual soil itself - it goes through the sod (laid about 10 or 15 years ago) and just stops because the soil is so badly compacted. I'm not having that. If we owned this I'd be pulling the sod up in front and xeriscaping. But then, of course, the Astroturf (*SHUDDER*) in the back yard would be long gone, too.

[theoldnorthstate]

Originally Posted by NeonGecko

Till. Don't till to 18" depth though - follow the advice about tilling your amendments in from the top. You cannot build a good lawn on top of compacted construction detritus. Kill the sod first by covering it with heavy duty CLEAR plastic. This will not only kill the grass, but many weed seeds in the top few inches of soil. Cover with the clear plastic again after tilling to kill off any weed seeds churned up in the tilling. This needs to be done when the weather is sunny and warm. Google "soil sterilization plastic". Many sites suggest using black plastic, but studies have shown that the soil heats up more and to a greater depth using clear plastic.

Don't be surprised if you come across ALL SORTS of junk under the sod. I once removed an entire bed sheet, some discarded siding, and some fiberglass insulation from an area of the yard where nothing seemed to grow properly. Just a couple of weeks ago, I found a table knife driven point down into a flower bed, with the handle a good 3" below the surface of the soil. I have NO IDEA what that was all about.

Rock removal is a pain and will leave you with sunken areas if you don't do it EVERYWHERE. That is a lot of work for 3/4 acre lot. You will have to pay someone to haul it away. The "rocks" you dig up will often be chunks of concrete, and in any case not generally suitable for making a rock garden, but evaluate what you end up with if you pursue this option - who knows, it may be usable. You will have to level the lawn after doing this. Which you will have to do anyway, for what its worth.

I agree with the poster who suggested more naturalistic beds and plantings and less lawn. You still need to prepare the soil appropriately, regardless.

After this is all done, you will need to get a soil roller and firm the soil evenly. I don't mean like it is now, hard as concrete - but so you don't get that situation of stepping onto the lawn and sinking ankle deep into it. If you don't roll the soil, you are likely to get uneven settling and neither seed nor sod will root properly. In fact you should roll the soil and then roll the sod (if you use sod) afterwards. This should be done when the soil is moist but not wet, in both cases.

Do it in sections. Unless you have a TON of money and can pay a team of landscapers to do all of this for you, I guess.

Soil sterilization using clear plastic beats killing the sod with Roundup on many levels. For one thing, this will break down the sod (sort of an on-site compost) so that it will add to your soil amendment. Roundup just leaves you with chunks of dead sod that won't break up very easily.

It's a big job. If I'm ever in a situation where we have a new house built again, they are NOT going to sod it until the site has been cleaned up properly - rather than letting them bury the trash under crap fill-dirt and then slapping sod on top. In the place where we are now, there are many spots where I can't drive a screwdriver into the actual soil itself - it goes through the sod (laid about 10 or 15 years ago) and just stops because the soil is so badly compacted. I'm not having that. If we owned this I'd be pulling the sod up in front and xeriscaping. But then, of course, the Astroturf (*SHUDDER*) in the back yard would be long gone, too.

I did all this and it worked well. But was an effort. Also had nemotodes.

But do what is suggested and it will work. good luck

[hmrd]

In his/her two comments Butterfly4u basically described organic lawn care.

If you haven’t considered organic lawn care for your lawn, then you really, really should. Your lawn can be beautiful, healthy, and a rich green when your neighbors’ lawns look just OK or poorly. And you can probably achieve this with much less time and effort than you’re expending now. If you’re establishing a new lawn or starting over, you can save an extraordinary amount of time, effort, and expense. As for cost, people generally report it’s about the same.

Organic lawn care has lots of advantages, but one I particularly like is that it doesn’t contribute chemical fertilizer to rainwater runoff that ends up in our streams, rivers, and lakes. I’m posting this at a time when residents of Toledo OH cannot drink their tap water due to the presence of poisonous algae, which are caused in large part by phosphorus washed from fertilized lands, including fertilized lawns. Oddly, I haven’t heard even one news report mention lawns, but they all have mentioned farmlands. The city of Cleveland has enough lawn to match a large portion of the surrounding farmland. One lawn doesn’t matter, but all the lawns in Cleveland taken together do.

To get started, just search organic lawn care. Or, if you private message me, I’ll send links to my favorite educational sites about organic lawn care.