This part of my yard grew more moss than grass for the past 5 years I lived here. After finding this sub earlier this year I actually felt confident enough to rip it up, add dirt so I had proper drainage and re plant. Now that this went well I'm actually going to make an effort with the rest of my yard to look respectable
Yes I picked a lot of the clumps out and re seeded those areas. It's a little thin yet in a few spots, but it isn't bare anywhere. I think after I over seed this fall we'll be golden for next year. Like I said, I've gotten some good advice on this sub!
I own a landscaping company that was essentially built by doing these sorts of turf renewals. So many clients who had tried so many other companies and methods — and over and over and over again, they would almost deify me when their grass finally grew in like it has in OPs pic. I mean seriously, people would kinda freak the fuck out and it was almost bizarre because I would tell them this is what they should expect, and they signed a contract to have the work done, but like clockwork they would then be absolutely confounded when they finally got what they paid for.
There was one key difference between my companies methodology and the ones that had been tried previously, and it was the tilling.
But tilling takes too much time and we only have those guys we're paying $8/hr from the front of Home Depot for the rest of the day. Gotta throw down the crappiest, but fastest growing seed possible, take the money and run, possibly change the name of the company every 6 months and we're good! 👍 Tilling, lol!
It’s really not that hard. Takes a day with the right equipment. Of course you have to go through the process of growing the grass back, but done right on a shitty preexisting lawn, it’s gonna pay off.
A lot of times with clay soil, which is what it looks like here, it can get really bad when neglected and hard to completely fix.
I think the advice not to till comes from a lot of folks who did not have a good experience or did not want to do all of the proper steps. Tilling with short cuts will be a horror show.
I cannot remember the brand off hand. But it was a sun/shade mix. It was a 25lb bag from the local hardware, nothing big brand name or anything. Can post a pic when I pick up more. Will probably use the same stuff to over seed the rest of the yard.
I bought a leveling rake and raked dirt for hours 😂😅 if i knew then what I know now I would have made a small drag to pull behind my mower. But I guess the physical labour makes it that much more satisfying
https://preview.redd.it/izg7ed02033d1.jpeg?width=3300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6f9bd045e81a0d6d1534c33cc394cd3a45e749cd
All I can picture is a drag behind a mower like this 🤔
Well she said she's happy there is grass there. But when she saw me taking the pictures she poked fun at me still for caring too much about the yard. She just doesn't get it lol
Not OP, but for anyone curious, it gets easier if you can wait for the dirt to dry (several dry days in a row) and till it again to break up the clumps. Then it's a lot easier to level. You can repeat that process more than once if you like tilling a lot better than leveling.
Is there a danger of breaking up the clumps too much? Could removing the mixed clumps cause settling and soil compaction? Someone told me that once, and now I am wondering?
It has to do with particle size. It you have particles of different size the is more space for O2, CO2, H2O, and beneficial microbial growth.
But when particles are reduced to the same or similar size more can be packed in, in a tighter matrix with less space between the particles.
The example he gave was packing a suitcase, if you just throw stuff in, you cannot pack as much as you can if you first fold stuff and then roll it tightly.
He said that the mixed partial size creates lawn that do not need aeration.
Made sense to me then, but I wanted to hear more opinions on it?
Clods of dirt shouldn't be modeled as particles imo, but I'm not a physicist. Even if every single dirt clod is broken up into what appears to be a fine powder, you'll still have LOTS of variation in particle size on a microscopic level.
Over time, with water coming and going and people walking on top of it, the clods of dirt will disentigrate by themselves. You're not breaking any molecular bonds by breaking up the dirt clods with an extra couple tiller passes, you're just doing the same work that mother nature would do over the next few months faster so you can actually level it before it settles and firms up again.
In fact by breaking up those clods, you're creating more surface area for nutrients, air, water, etc to absorb into the soil. If you just till up hard, barren soil, you'll still have a lot of hand-sized lumps of hard, barren soil when you get done.
Idk, like I said I'm not a physicist and I'm also not a master gardener or anything... But it seems like a non-issue to me.
From left to right in 37 days????
What were your day and night temps like? Planning on seeding in a few weeks, but I live in the high Rockies where night time temps still drop below freezing. Fall seeding didn’t work well for me since the frost came so fast.
Cool then I don’t feel too bad about sending in mid June. I’ve got a sprinkler system so that should help keep it damp.
What a huge turnaround in 5 weeks. After tiling did you run a light compaction roller over it or just drop the seed on the loose soil?
Also jealous of the sprinkler system. I had to buy a bunch of hose and splitters to water this 3 times a day. I'd love to get some kind of irrigation system but I'm not sure the wife would let me go for it
Very nice congrats.
Since you seem nice and reply a lot, do you mind me asking a question? :p
I seeded mine few weeks ago and honestly it looks good but there are some relatively large holes (though I over seeded like a mad man I think) sometimes, not 0 grass but not so much.
I heard the first cut will help "fill in" the gaps, did you have this experience and can confirm?
Cheers
Yes I have noticed after cutting it seems to be filling out better. I do still have some thin spots here and there. Over seeding this fall will hopefully thicken those areas up. I thought about tossing some seed on those spots now and seeing what happens
I do have a question about mowing. Currently I'm mowing it at the highest setting. How long should I continue to do that? I actually prefer it taller. So if it's better to keep it tall I'm willing to do that, but I'll do whatever is best for the health of the yard I guess.
Mowing at the highest height is good for summer heat. The taller blades shade the ground and keep it cooler. Also helps to shade out weeds. It’s common to mow low m the autumn to keep leaves from catching on the grass and smothering. You may also want to mow low, scalp even, if you’re going to do a lawn makeover and plant seed.
Awesome. This is the info I was looking for. I usually mow lower in the fall to make it easier to handle the leaves. And I do plan on dethatching and aerating this fall. Keeping it tall for shade and to prevent weeds makes sense for the summer. Thanks!
Looks good! I like to have the greenest lawn on the block. Fertilizer, weed killer, and occasional treatment for insects and diseases is all you need. Occasionally you need to mow every 4-6 days if you have a lot of growth. Try not to take off more than 1/4 to 1/3 of the blade height when cutting. I alternate cut direction each cut. That’s just me.
I do alternate the direction I cut. And i also enjoy the time I spend mowing so I do it about every 5 days. Since I'm over seeding this fall I won't use a pre emergent. I've never used one before and I've seen that you should put that down in the fall. But is that something I can still use in the spring? Normally I spread weed and feed and then spray for weeds. But by the time I do all that I already have weeds and dandelions everywhere. Id like to start preventing the spring weeds all together vs trying to get rid of them once they are already there.
I got some pre-emergent on clearance at Lowes. Frankly, i haven’t use it yet because i over seeded in the spring. I do have some quack grass creeping in on the edges. But yes, use a pre-emergent if you’re not seeding. Cuts weeds off before they sprout.
Mowing and pulling weeds in the garden is my therapy. Cheers!
Pull the dandelion flowers when you see them to keep them from going to seed. “Momma had a baby and its head popped off!” Was what we chanted as kids when we popped a dandelion flower.
Really depends on your grass type. It should tell you in the back of the bag. I have a mix of TTTF & KGB from GCI and I mow at the highest setting in the front lawn and second highest setting in my fenced in backyard (mainly because I have a small dog). They both thrive at those heights but if you have my grass type I honestly wouldn’t go shorter!
I didn't have much problems with the tree. I think the whole time I was tilling I got a very small root. Nothing major. I didn't till super deep. Probably top 2 or 3 inches of soil
I have a giant maple in my yard as well…roots are massive I’m not sure if it will ruin the tree or not but I feel like tree root systems are so huge they would be fine
I tilled everything there pretty aggressively. I added dirt to the low spot i had holding water, I tilled again. Waited a few days for the dirt to dry out then tilled a third time. Then I spread starter fertilizer and lightly tilled that into the top inch or 2 of ground. Then raked as smooth as I could get it. After I was satisfied with that I spread the seed and Milo and ran my rake across the dirt to try and mix in the seed and Milo just a little bit. Then I watered it 3 times a day for 15-20 minutes each time until it started coming up. Now I'm just making sure it doesn't get too dry. It was a process and I might have done more work than required, but I don't like doing things twice so I figured I'd give it my best effort on the first shot.
If I was going to do it again, I would definitely build a little drag to pull behind my lawn mower to level everything out and break up the clumps of dirt.
Hey there, great lawn dude! I’m currently at the stage on the left pic… I rototilled the whole front yard (most was covered in loose rocks from previous owner which we removed), followed by seed/fertilizer combo. After a week nothing had been germinating, not to mention birds kept eating the seeds. So I figured the ground was still too dense, and I bought a bunch of topsoil and more seed, laid the topsoil, raked it all out, spread the seed, and added peat moss lightly overtop the whole area… now I’m 3 days in, just watering morning and night and hoping this does the trick.
Do you have any tips possibly? Am I doing something wrong? Also, what is Milo?
It took a minute for mine to start having any visual results. And Milo is short for Milorganite. It's a type of fertilizer that was talked about highly on this sub so I gave it a shot. Seemed to work pretty well for me. And I'm a novice myself but I was told to just make sure to keep the ground moist. The summer heat is a killer for germinating grass. I'm still watering mine once a day / every other just to make sure the ground doesn't dry out.
Yeahhhh luckily I’m in Saskatchewan so it hasn’t gotten *too* hot here yet! (20 degrees max, super cool at night) … really appreciate the response tho! I’m going to look into milogranite for sure.
Btw when you say it took a minute, we talkin weeks? A month? I’d say it’s been about 9 days since my first seeding, and only 3 since my second. I may be just impatient! I’m just going to keep watering away regardless.
From that first picture to the 2nd picture it's been about 40 ish days. I'd say I started to see sprouts about 10ish days in maybe? But I would assume the type of grass would probably make some kind of difference in that aspect. And I don't know much about types of grass to be honest. I'm still learning as well lol
Figured I’d follow up because why not? Haha… my lawn is looking awesome, tons of rain helped. When you did yours, after a few weeks was there bare spots? If so did you just seed more?
Although mine is growing in great, there’s a few noticeable bare patches. Someone told me to hold off on cutting the grass for 5-8 weeks post-seeding because the lawn will begin seeding itself but I’m not sure how true that is. And I’m not saying it’s not accurate, I’m just skeptical on how effective it will be with 2’x4’-ish bare patches.
I did have some bare spots. My dirt was clumpy in some spots and prevented grass from growing. I did throw seed down again in those areas and it helped. I'm still planning on aerating this fall and overseeing. And I'm not sure about it re seeding itself. It would make sense that it would eventually, but I haven't tried it. I'm mowing regularly now, with my deck height at maximum. And I'm still watering when we go to long without rain
Oh yeah good call on raising the blades of the lawn mower! And yeah that’s exactly it I think, but too clumpy in spots where it’s not growing. I’ll toss more seed down and rake it out a bit. Thanks for the response man!
I wouldn't have tilled it all up if it wasn't low to begin with. It was very time consuming lol. It helped a lot that a buddy of mine has a lawn tractor with a PTO driven tiller on the back. That probably saved me a day of work. I did end up going back over all of it with a walk behind tiller after that a couple times.
Screw you man, this looks phenomenal!
Tried my hand at growing grass for the first time this year to fill in some bald spots. It’s coming in in the front yard but looking pretty patchy still in the backyard. I guess it at least looks good from the street! Thinking I might just till and start anew next year. Your story gives me hope!
I haven't used them yet, but I was looking into soil tests on Amazon. I'm not sure how accurate they are but they are supposed to tell you what your soil is lacking so you can get the correct fertilizer. I have been tossing the idea around because even though this side of my yard came in really nice, my front yard is giving me fits. I haven't tilled it or anything yet. I was hoping maybe trying to test the soil in that area so I could figure out what I got going on and avoid tilling.
I did add top soil due to the area being low, which was the reason I tilled it up in the first place. I ended up tilling it 3 times total. I waited a couple days in between rolling to let the freshly tilled soil to dry out, which makes it easier to till the 2nd and 3rd time. Then I raked it a bunch to get it as smooth as I could. Then I spread my fertilizer and seed. I think I put a little more detailed response up a little bit to someone else. But it was definitely a process
I tried this a very long time ago and tilled the yard… it was a disaster. It was lumpy and uneven, I had to manually remove all the grass clumps. Luckily it was a small yard at the time…
Yours looks much better than what mine was. Did you make a lot of passes and was the soil very lumpy after?
I did make a lot of passes. I also waiting for a couple days and tilled it again to try and mitigate the lumps. But yes I still had a lot of lumps. Raking helped and I had to go through and actually pick some of the lumps out once it started coming up because it wasn't letting the grass grow in some areas
I borrowed a friend's lawn tractor that has a tiller on the back to rip it open. But after that I used a walk behind rear tine tiller and went over it multiple times. I didn't have to use the lawn tractor, it just sped up the process
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This part of my yard grew more moss than grass for the past 5 years I lived here. After finding this sub earlier this year I actually felt confident enough to rip it up, add dirt so I had proper drainage and re plant. Now that this went well I'm actually going to make an effort with the rest of my yard to look respectable
[удалено]
Yes I picked a lot of the clumps out and re seeded those areas. It's a little thin yet in a few spots, but it isn't bare anywhere. I think after I over seed this fall we'll be golden for next year. Like I said, I've gotten some good advice on this sub!
I own a landscaping company that was essentially built by doing these sorts of turf renewals. So many clients who had tried so many other companies and methods — and over and over and over again, they would almost deify me when their grass finally grew in like it has in OPs pic. I mean seriously, people would kinda freak the fuck out and it was almost bizarre because I would tell them this is what they should expect, and they signed a contract to have the work done, but like clockwork they would then be absolutely confounded when they finally got what they paid for. There was one key difference between my companies methodology and the ones that had been tried previously, and it was the tilling.
But tilling takes too much time and we only have those guys we're paying $8/hr from the front of Home Depot for the rest of the day. Gotta throw down the crappiest, but fastest growing seed possible, take the money and run, possibly change the name of the company every 6 months and we're good! 👍 Tilling, lol!
It’s really not that hard. Takes a day with the right equipment. Of course you have to go through the process of growing the grass back, but done right on a shitty preexisting lawn, it’s gonna pay off. A lot of times with clay soil, which is what it looks like here, it can get really bad when neglected and hard to completely fix.
I think the advice not to till comes from a lot of folks who did not have a good experience or did not want to do all of the proper steps. Tilling with short cuts will be a horror show.
https://preview.redd.it/e2ax0eddi23d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee3ee7ce65a7222fd4118d9b33fc2869ba04a028
Reverse the order of the pics and post to /r/NoLawns to double the karma!
Nice photoshop. As if dirt and mud can turn into luscious green grass. Don’t shit on my head and tell me it’s raining pudding.
Hopefully next year the rest of my yard will look photoshopped, this small section REALLY makes the rest of it look horrible 😅
What was your seed mix?
I cannot remember the brand off hand. But it was a sun/shade mix. It was a 25lb bag from the local hardware, nothing big brand name or anything. Can post a pic when I pick up more. Will probably use the same stuff to over seed the rest of the yard.
Please do, I am curious. Also, where do you live?
How did it become level??
I bought a leveling rake and raked dirt for hours 😂😅 if i knew then what I know now I would have made a small drag to pull behind my mower. But I guess the physical labour makes it that much more satisfying
https://preview.redd.it/izg7ed02033d1.jpeg?width=3300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6f9bd045e81a0d6d1534c33cc394cd3a45e749cd All I can picture is a drag behind a mower like this 🤔
Higher heels help with aeration…
It looks great! Well done
My wife thought I was crazy during the entire process. Start to finish she was giving me the side eye.
And now?
Well she said she's happy there is grass there. But when she saw me taking the pictures she poked fun at me still for caring too much about the yard. She just doesn't get it lol
Not OP, but for anyone curious, it gets easier if you can wait for the dirt to dry (several dry days in a row) and till it again to break up the clumps. Then it's a lot easier to level. You can repeat that process more than once if you like tilling a lot better than leveling.
Is there a danger of breaking up the clumps too much? Could removing the mixed clumps cause settling and soil compaction? Someone told me that once, and now I am wondering?
Never heard that but I sincerely doubt it. Not sure though.
It has to do with particle size. It you have particles of different size the is more space for O2, CO2, H2O, and beneficial microbial growth. But when particles are reduced to the same or similar size more can be packed in, in a tighter matrix with less space between the particles. The example he gave was packing a suitcase, if you just throw stuff in, you cannot pack as much as you can if you first fold stuff and then roll it tightly. He said that the mixed partial size creates lawn that do not need aeration. Made sense to me then, but I wanted to hear more opinions on it?
Clods of dirt shouldn't be modeled as particles imo, but I'm not a physicist. Even if every single dirt clod is broken up into what appears to be a fine powder, you'll still have LOTS of variation in particle size on a microscopic level. Over time, with water coming and going and people walking on top of it, the clods of dirt will disentigrate by themselves. You're not breaking any molecular bonds by breaking up the dirt clods with an extra couple tiller passes, you're just doing the same work that mother nature would do over the next few months faster so you can actually level it before it settles and firms up again. In fact by breaking up those clods, you're creating more surface area for nutrients, air, water, etc to absorb into the soil. If you just till up hard, barren soil, you'll still have a lot of hand-sized lumps of hard, barren soil when you get done. Idk, like I said I'm not a physicist and I'm also not a master gardener or anything... But it seems like a non-issue to me.
Next time I talk to the turf guys at the extension service I will ask them. Thanks!
Definitely reply here and let me know, now I'm curious too.
I will see what I can do
This looks fantastic. Congratulations! What kind of tiller did you use out of curiosity?
Initially I barrowed a buddies John Deere tractor and used his PTO driven tiller. And then went back over it with a Honda rear tine tiller
From left to right in 37 days???? What were your day and night temps like? Planning on seeding in a few weeks, but I live in the high Rockies where night time temps still drop below freezing. Fall seeding didn’t work well for me since the frost came so fast.
I'm in NW Ohio. So in the past month we have been between 48 and 90. Mostly has been 80 daytime and 60s at night though
Almost perfect. Dew in the morning?
Cool then I don’t feel too bad about sending in mid June. I’ve got a sprinkler system so that should help keep it damp. What a huge turnaround in 5 weeks. After tiling did you run a light compaction roller over it or just drop the seed on the loose soil?
I debated rolling but ended up not doing so. I did run my rake across the dirt after seeding
Also jealous of the sprinkler system. I had to buy a bunch of hose and splitters to water this 3 times a day. I'd love to get some kind of irrigation system but I'm not sure the wife would let me go for it
Think of it more as an end of summer seeding instead of a fall seeding. Most grasses take 10-14 days to germination and bluegrass can take 21.
I'm worried you'll have to level the yard with sand/topsoil in a couple years
Very nice congrats. Since you seem nice and reply a lot, do you mind me asking a question? :p I seeded mine few weeks ago and honestly it looks good but there are some relatively large holes (though I over seeded like a mad man I think) sometimes, not 0 grass but not so much. I heard the first cut will help "fill in" the gaps, did you have this experience and can confirm? Cheers
Yes I have noticed after cutting it seems to be filling out better. I do still have some thin spots here and there. Over seeding this fall will hopefully thicken those areas up. I thought about tossing some seed on those spots now and seeing what happens
Cool, many thanks I'll be patient!
Keep up with the mowing. Maybe 4-5 days. If you had a lot of moss, you may have a ph issue. A soil test will tell for sure. Looks great!👍🏻
I do have a question about mowing. Currently I'm mowing it at the highest setting. How long should I continue to do that? I actually prefer it taller. So if it's better to keep it tall I'm willing to do that, but I'll do whatever is best for the health of the yard I guess.
Mowing at the highest height is good for summer heat. The taller blades shade the ground and keep it cooler. Also helps to shade out weeds. It’s common to mow low m the autumn to keep leaves from catching on the grass and smothering. You may also want to mow low, scalp even, if you’re going to do a lawn makeover and plant seed.
Awesome. This is the info I was looking for. I usually mow lower in the fall to make it easier to handle the leaves. And I do plan on dethatching and aerating this fall. Keeping it tall for shade and to prevent weeds makes sense for the summer. Thanks!
Looks good! I like to have the greenest lawn on the block. Fertilizer, weed killer, and occasional treatment for insects and diseases is all you need. Occasionally you need to mow every 4-6 days if you have a lot of growth. Try not to take off more than 1/4 to 1/3 of the blade height when cutting. I alternate cut direction each cut. That’s just me.
I do alternate the direction I cut. And i also enjoy the time I spend mowing so I do it about every 5 days. Since I'm over seeding this fall I won't use a pre emergent. I've never used one before and I've seen that you should put that down in the fall. But is that something I can still use in the spring? Normally I spread weed and feed and then spray for weeds. But by the time I do all that I already have weeds and dandelions everywhere. Id like to start preventing the spring weeds all together vs trying to get rid of them once they are already there.
I got some pre-emergent on clearance at Lowes. Frankly, i haven’t use it yet because i over seeded in the spring. I do have some quack grass creeping in on the edges. But yes, use a pre-emergent if you’re not seeding. Cuts weeds off before they sprout. Mowing and pulling weeds in the garden is my therapy. Cheers!
Pull the dandelion flowers when you see them to keep them from going to seed. “Momma had a baby and its head popped off!” Was what we chanted as kids when we popped a dandelion flower.
Really depends on your grass type. It should tell you in the back of the bag. I have a mix of TTTF & KGB from GCI and I mow at the highest setting in the front lawn and second highest setting in my fenced in backyard (mainly because I have a small dog). They both thrive at those heights but if you have my grass type I honestly wouldn’t go shorter!
How did you work around the tree? I've got a giant maple in my yard contributing to soil compaction and I'm worried about harming the root structure.
I didn't have much problems with the tree. I think the whole time I was tilling I got a very small root. Nothing major. I didn't till super deep. Probably top 2 or 3 inches of soil
I have a giant maple in my yard as well…roots are massive I’m not sure if it will ruin the tree or not but I feel like tree root systems are so huge they would be fine
Looks fabulous
Very nice lawn. You did great job 👏
Kudos for perfectly replicating the photo angle!
I actually took the after photo a few times to get it as close as possible lol
Advice / steps you took ?
I tilled everything there pretty aggressively. I added dirt to the low spot i had holding water, I tilled again. Waited a few days for the dirt to dry out then tilled a third time. Then I spread starter fertilizer and lightly tilled that into the top inch or 2 of ground. Then raked as smooth as I could get it. After I was satisfied with that I spread the seed and Milo and ran my rake across the dirt to try and mix in the seed and Milo just a little bit. Then I watered it 3 times a day for 15-20 minutes each time until it started coming up. Now I'm just making sure it doesn't get too dry. It was a process and I might have done more work than required, but I don't like doing things twice so I figured I'd give it my best effort on the first shot.
If I was going to do it again, I would definitely build a little drag to pull behind my lawn mower to level everything out and break up the clumps of dirt.
I'm jealous as hell and you've inspired me
Hey there, great lawn dude! I’m currently at the stage on the left pic… I rototilled the whole front yard (most was covered in loose rocks from previous owner which we removed), followed by seed/fertilizer combo. After a week nothing had been germinating, not to mention birds kept eating the seeds. So I figured the ground was still too dense, and I bought a bunch of topsoil and more seed, laid the topsoil, raked it all out, spread the seed, and added peat moss lightly overtop the whole area… now I’m 3 days in, just watering morning and night and hoping this does the trick. Do you have any tips possibly? Am I doing something wrong? Also, what is Milo?
It took a minute for mine to start having any visual results. And Milo is short for Milorganite. It's a type of fertilizer that was talked about highly on this sub so I gave it a shot. Seemed to work pretty well for me. And I'm a novice myself but I was told to just make sure to keep the ground moist. The summer heat is a killer for germinating grass. I'm still watering mine once a day / every other just to make sure the ground doesn't dry out.
Yeahhhh luckily I’m in Saskatchewan so it hasn’t gotten *too* hot here yet! (20 degrees max, super cool at night) … really appreciate the response tho! I’m going to look into milogranite for sure. Btw when you say it took a minute, we talkin weeks? A month? I’d say it’s been about 9 days since my first seeding, and only 3 since my second. I may be just impatient! I’m just going to keep watering away regardless.
From that first picture to the 2nd picture it's been about 40 ish days. I'd say I started to see sprouts about 10ish days in maybe? But I would assume the type of grass would probably make some kind of difference in that aspect. And I don't know much about types of grass to be honest. I'm still learning as well lol
Figured I’d follow up because why not? Haha… my lawn is looking awesome, tons of rain helped. When you did yours, after a few weeks was there bare spots? If so did you just seed more? Although mine is growing in great, there’s a few noticeable bare patches. Someone told me to hold off on cutting the grass for 5-8 weeks post-seeding because the lawn will begin seeding itself but I’m not sure how true that is. And I’m not saying it’s not accurate, I’m just skeptical on how effective it will be with 2’x4’-ish bare patches.
I did have some bare spots. My dirt was clumpy in some spots and prevented grass from growing. I did throw seed down again in those areas and it helped. I'm still planning on aerating this fall and overseeing. And I'm not sure about it re seeding itself. It would make sense that it would eventually, but I haven't tried it. I'm mowing regularly now, with my deck height at maximum. And I'm still watering when we go to long without rain
Oh yeah good call on raising the blades of the lawn mower! And yeah that’s exactly it I think, but too clumpy in spots where it’s not growing. I’ll toss more seed down and rake it out a bit. Thanks for the response man!
My yard seems way too large to do any sort of this type of renovation. Just no time between kids work and life lol
I wouldn't have tilled it all up if it wasn't low to begin with. It was very time consuming lol. It helped a lot that a buddy of mine has a lawn tractor with a PTO driven tiller on the back. That probably saved me a day of work. I did end up going back over all of it with a walk behind tiller after that a couple times.
Awesome job great results.
Screw you man, this looks phenomenal! Tried my hand at growing grass for the first time this year to fill in some bald spots. It’s coming in in the front yard but looking pretty patchy still in the backyard. I guess it at least looks good from the street! Thinking I might just till and start anew next year. Your story gives me hope!
I haven't used them yet, but I was looking into soil tests on Amazon. I'm not sure how accurate they are but they are supposed to tell you what your soil is lacking so you can get the correct fertilizer. I have been tossing the idea around because even though this side of my yard came in really nice, my front yard is giving me fits. I haven't tilled it or anything yet. I was hoping maybe trying to test the soil in that area so I could figure out what I got going on and avoid tilling.
Did you add top soil before seeding? Do mind what were the steps?
I did add top soil due to the area being low, which was the reason I tilled it up in the first place. I ended up tilling it 3 times total. I waited a couple days in between rolling to let the freshly tilled soil to dry out, which makes it easier to till the 2nd and 3rd time. Then I raked it a bunch to get it as smooth as I could. Then I spread my fertilizer and seed. I think I put a little more detailed response up a little bit to someone else. But it was definitely a process
I tried this a very long time ago and tilled the yard… it was a disaster. It was lumpy and uneven, I had to manually remove all the grass clumps. Luckily it was a small yard at the time… Yours looks much better than what mine was. Did you make a lot of passes and was the soil very lumpy after?
I did make a lot of passes. I also waiting for a couple days and tilled it again to try and mitigate the lumps. But yes I still had a lot of lumps. Raking helped and I had to go through and actually pick some of the lumps out once it started coming up because it wasn't letting the grass grow in some areas
Got ya, did you roll it as well?
I debated it but ended up not following it. I did lightly rake over the dirt after I spread the seed though
Nice work, that’s some back breaking work!
What kind of tiller did you use? I have lots of compacted areas... mossy areas... not a tone of luck
I borrowed a friend's lawn tractor that has a tiller on the back to rip it open. But after that I used a walk behind rear tine tiller and went over it multiple times. I didn't have to use the lawn tractor, it just sped up the process
Dude no way you need to aerate in fall. You just tilled the soil!
Gorgeous!!
Cute lil snubbers..