My neighbor says I can. His backyard has nice grass but he put his sod in shortly after he graded it last May. I got my yard tilled/graded last June but it seemed too hot to put sod in at that time. Now that it's spring I wanna get some grass back here.
by benwhilson
28 Comments
Ill start with im no expert, and my yard needs work. If it were me, id water the ever loving crap out of that, then add a load of top soil and till it in, and then sod.
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Till it first, then add a sbit ton of water, then sod.
But yes, yes is always the answer
Can you, probably but you’ll be sorry down the road when your grass is thin, hard to water, bare spots etc. Now is the opportunity to add some organic material (compost) into the first 5-6 inches so you soil hold more air, water, and microrizal fungi your lawn will thrive in a couple years.
Just rent a tiller and break it up first.
Add compost for nutrients/organic matter?
Sorry to say you should get it wet like crazy and then till it and add mushroom compost and cow poop. I can’t remember specifically what it was called in bags bought at Home Depot 8 years ago. Possibly stear manure.
If ur gonna do Sod then I’d absolutely make sure u have an irrigation system, gotta protect ur investment and time spent on this.
If ur time is worth nothing then go a head and spend hours watering throughout the week, but not practical for most
Compost, lots of it! The only way to break up clay
This looks like a job for Matt Damon.
This was my first lawn that I cared about. Packed hard clay. Builder put sod right on top of it. I knew nothing at the time.
Fast forward a year and I decided to get into grass. I had grass so nice that the DoorDash people commented on it.
Roots do not care about hard clay. Is it ideal? No. But unless you spend thousands upon thousands on soil amendments it will still be clay under there.
In reality, if you put down sod, and put down a lot of nitrogen on regular basis, your grass will turn the soil into much nicer soil (that nitrogen goes somewhere, right?). It will take years, but it will be fine.
In some ways clay soil can be nice because it holds water forever. The flip side of this is that it is difficult to water deeply in a short amount of time. It’s trade offs.
If you have thousands to spend on amendments, and can make sure you mix it in deeply. Go for it. I would. If you feel like you can handle watering your grass and applying a lot of fertilizer for a few years, do that instead.
Water the crap out of it, compost by the mac truck load, and rototill it in
First, you should know what kind of soil you’re beating on with a trenching shovel. If it’s primarily clay, dry and hardened good luck getting a tiller through it. Looks more like a bulldozer with a ripper bar on it. Clay also likes to hold onto water so it’s not accessible by plant roots. The bottom line is if you don’t know what you’re playing with, go to the local agricultural extension service to have your soil tested. They can give you better suggestions than a bunch of yahoos like me on Reddit.
Since even the weeds are having difficulty finding purchase, I doubt much of anything will grow there without complete remediation.
Just needs water and a grass with a strong root system. Surfactants can help. Bermuda would do just fine but I recommend adding organic matter if you plan on tilling anyway.
What kind of shovel is that?
No, that doesn’t look like that would be good. It looks like a region that should have a lot of turf grass. Keep the turf to a minimum and landscape using local, drought tolerant specifies and decorative stone.
Do you live on the moon
Are you on Mars?
You could. But you shouldn’t
You can go cheaper and buy a Son Joe scarifier. Break it up, level it out then sod.
Use Gypsum to loosen clay soils. ‘The Andersons’ , Espoma & local garden centers sell it un granular bags. Use Gypsum BEFORE any top soil or seeding- till it in it water it!
Ok. So I tried what you’re saying after being in your EXACT situation, down to the timing.
Here’s what not to do… put down top soil and sod and call it a day. That’s what we did. 3 years later the grass was suffering, badly. All because of that base layer of compacted dirt. The grass couldn’t grow anymore and it was struggling. The next year the lawn was patchy and weeds became an issue despite my very careful lawn care routines.
So, I started over, killed everything near a weed and tilled the rest. I actually removed all the debris back down to the horrible, concrete like layer. I tilled it again and used compost to mix into the soil plus some other things you will learn about while researching. Put my tilled grass layer back, leveled with sand/compost/dirt mix and layer sod. Watered 2x a day for 3 weeks. And 7 years later, I still have the best lawn around and takes very little effort vs the early days.
Till it, add compost and chemicals to get that dirt worth something, or put 2 feet of fill dirt before sod.
Bro is trying to terraforming Mars
Most of the time you can put at least 4 inches of topsoil on anything and grow beautiful grass. But tilling is very beneficial
That hard pan just beneath the top soil could cause flooding if you’re in a low area. I’d rent a tiller and get a truck load of top soil, sand etc.
Thought this was r/lawncarecirclejerk
Grab bags of leaves whenever you can. I usually get about a dozen big bags of leaves a couple times a year to give all the mulch/compostni need. And I bet 5-6″ of leaves would work better than most any thing else. Water the leaves in a bit. They should go far. I put some down yesterday just in time for all this rain were getting. I use the leaves for weed suppression, nutrition for my fruit trees, and the natural look. That all we keep a compost bin and use our decomposed scraps for additional nutrition. We have burn barrels to burn paper products and use the ashes to help the soil also. Good luck!