Got a bumpy or uneven spot in your yard? In this video, I walk you through the entire process of leveling a low spot in my front yard using topsoil, silica, Humichar, and more. I’ll break down everything from mixing the materials to applying them, so you can easily follow along and get professional-looking results at home.
I start in the garage showing all the tools and products I’m using, then move on to the uneven area in my front yard. I begin by mowing with the Toro standard mower, followed by a reel mowing to ensure an even surface. Next, I mix silica, topsoil, and Humichar by The Andersons to improve soil structure and drainage. After leveling the area, I mix more topsoil with Twin City Seed’s Fireball Perennial Ryegrass and Humichar for a lush, smooth finish. I finish the process by adding RGS by Green County Fertilizers and Humic 12 to help with root growth and soil health, followed by a thorough watering to set everything in.
Tools & Products Used: – Toro Standard Mower
– Manual Reel Mower
– Topsoil
– Silica (Quartz)
– Humichar by The Andersons
– Twin City Seed Fireball Perennial Ryegrass
– RGS by Green County Fertilizers
– Humic 12
Why This Method Works: ✅ Silica promotes drainage, resists compaction, and is a great alternative to sand
✅ Topsoil and Humichar help improve soil quality, encourage root growth, and fill in low spots
✅ RGS and Humic 12 support healthy lawn growth and soil fertility
✅ Perfect for fixing uneven, compacted, or clay-heavy lawns
Key Benefits of This Method: – Promotes organic lawn care for healthier, greener grass
– Great for achieving a lush lawn
– Helps create a thriving perennial ryegrass lawn
– Perfect for ryegrass and perennial ryegrass lawns
– Supports lawn fertilizers like RGS and Humic 12 for optimal growth
– Ammonium sulfate can be added later for an extra boost to help nourish your lawn
Get your own Lawn Leveler here:
https://www.rrproducts.com/
Grab your Fireball Perennial Ryegrass from Twin City Seed here:
https://twincityseed.com/product/fireball-perennial-ryegrass/
Also the Main Source:
http://baileyseed.com/products/fireball-perennial-ryegrass/
Humichar by The Andersons:
https://andersonshomeandgarden.com/shop/products/humichar-dg
RGS & Humic by Green County Fertilizers:
Subscribe for more lawn care tips, leveling guides, and backyard DIY projects!
#lawncare #lawn #lawnmaintenance #landscaping #mowing #yardwork
heat heat all right well welcome back to the Yard Dab today
we’re going to be dealing with clay soils right and um uh I’ve already done one leveling video in
the back where we used an organic matter such as top soil and we mixed that with a small amount of
sand play sand well in this video we’re going to be in the front yard this time and I’m going to
be doing the same thing except we’re going to be using silica uh which is just quartz it’s very
similar to sand a lot of sand has silica in it it’s good stuff especially if you have clay soil
now I’m not telling you to go around your yard and put silica or sand all over your property i don’t
recommend anybody do that um but I’m going to show you my ratio uh very very simple i use about four
bags of top soil to one 50 lb bag of the uh silica so basically the tools that we’ll be needing for
this project um very simple lawn leveling rake uh a lawn rake or any sort of rake will work fine uh
some good quality grass seed and then of course you’ll need a wheelbarrow or anything to mix um
I mean you can just do it on the ground if you really need to uh but it it definitely having
a wheelbarrow will make things easier and then um that’s that’s pretty much it you’ll need your
lawn mower and um and a real mower if you have it um I’ll be using a manual push reel mower and I’ll
be going over everything we’ll be doing outside here in just a second um but that’s pretty much
all you’re going to need um and then you’ll need some top soil and some sand or silica um either
one um I’m using silica today because I want uh in the front of my property on my yard I’ve only used
silica in the front and the back I’ve used play sand and then I’ve used silica in one area where
I had really compacted soil um really really heavy and I used to get a lot of rain buildup there uh
now in that corner you can dig there it’s super easy i just planted some trees there there’s
no problem the silica fix that area so I highly recommend silica but I also don’t recommend that
you just top dress your whole yard with nothing but silica um if you live in a place where there’s
more of a sandy soil and you have a putting green or something that you’re building in your backyard
then go for it but if you’re not doing something like that this is just your front yard your
sideyard your backyard whatever i don’t recommend you do that i recommend that you get more of
like a mix a leveling mix that’s for your area now you can look that up online you can type lawn
levelers in my area whatever and see who does that and they’ll tell you what they recommend for that
area um if where you can get a soil test done and know what’s in your soil around your house um but
where I live it’s all clay soil um I’ve everywhere I’ve ever lived um except for one place I’ve
always had clay soil so dealing with clay soil the silica I’ll put the facts up here on the screen
about silica everything you need to know and you can pause it so I’ll put that right up there um
but it’s pretty good stuff uh I highly recommend that you wear a mask um when you’re spreading
it if you put it into a spreader um which you can um if you’re going to do it that way and just
top dress your lawn with like a/2 in or something of this stuff you can do that too then you don’t
even have to pour or organic matter or top soil or whatever you want to mix it but like I said
we will be using four bags of top soil and 150 lb bag of the silica that’s my ratio today that
would be kind of like an 8020 something like that um the spot that we’re working in this is just a
test area we’re not leveling my entire front yard or anything like that there’s plenty of videos on
that stuff so if you want to watch that um maybe I’ll try to find a good one and I’ll leave a link
for it what we’ll be doing is we’ll be working an area right in my front yard a certain section uh
we’ll be fixing and if you have an established lawn like like a lawn that’s thick um it’s grown
in real well you’re going to need to scalp it to really get a good level um whereas with mine I
basically have like very thin grass in the area that we’ll be doing i’m going to mow it real mow
it and then that’s it um and then we’re going to come in and just start leveling and and you know
spreading the stuff around um and but if you have a real established lawn and you’ve got bumps all
over your lawn and stuff like that I recommend that you just do the whole lawn and you scalp
that thing down as as far down as possible you go lowest setting on your mower and just scalp it all
um because otherwise you’re going to continuously just have all these little bumpy areas all over
your yard uh my front yard used to be like that um but now it’s just in the corners because I’ve
actually fully leveled it and the corners is just from excess water from my sprinklers that’s all it
is i just have a lot of sprinklers on a small yard so that doesn’t help at all um also the snow we
get snow for about half the year basically that’s sitting there so that just compacts it even more
and then the freeze and thaw and all that so if you live in a cold place you probably have a very
similar yard to mine um you you’re going to lose your leveling so that’s another thing too is that
you can level and it’s not going to solve all your problems you’re going to have to level again in a
couple seasons again especially if you live in an area where you get a lot of rain a lot of snow
any freeze and thaw stuff like um but that’s pretty much everything um you need to know about
the silica and um you know you saw those facts about the silica versus sand and kind of what it
is and all that stuff so you kind of know what you’re working with here uh but let me go ahead
and show you the area that we’ll be working in and then we’ll get straight to work and I’m going
to mow just the front today and real mow the front and then of course level the spot that we’ll be
working in um for this and uh this is all about fixing clay soil we’re not trying to totally solve
all the clay soil get rid of all the clay soil that’s not going to happen we’re trying to work
with clay soil and what we have and constantly improving our soil now let me show you first
everything that we’ll be working with and then I’ll show you outside and then we’ll get straight
to mowing and also um when working I don’t know if I mentioned already um hopefully I did but when
working with this silica sand you always want to wear a mask always wear a mask especially if it’s
windy like uh right now it’s pretty windy right now so I’m definitely going to be wearing a mask
and I’m going to be on the side of my house in an isolated area where the stuff’s not going all over
the place uh because my son’s in the backyard with my wife and uh you just don’t want to inhale the
vapor coming off of the sand um but or the silica um but uh once we have it mixed it doesn’t really
matter um but yeah when it’s just pure form coming out of the bag you’ll see it’s got kind of like a
little little bit of a smoke thing going on with it um but it just looks like white sand um but
wear mask when you’re dealing with it especially if you have asthma i have allergy problems like
today it’s really frustrating me like it’s messing with my eyes my sinuses all that um I’ve been
dealing with it for like 2 weeks definitely don’t want to hail that on top of that so that’s Yeah
um but make sure you got a mask uh the next thing um like I was saying leveling rake so I got my
leveling rake right here somebody in the comments finally uh let me know which kind this is so I’ll
leave the link for that and then also top soil uh I usually go with anything that’s local to my
area um I get these at Lowe’s i think I’ve seen them at Home Depot as well so uh check your big
box store see if they have a local top soil if they don’t it’s okay um but this one’s good it’s
got compost and Pete and perlite probably just a tad bit of sand and uh yeah and then so I’ve got
my four bags here and then of course I’ve got the uh silica sand right here industrial quartz
and then I’ve got some really good uh perennial ryrass seed called Fireball um from Twin City
Seed and then there’s also their main source uh where they get it from um I’ll put the links for
that as well in the description and then um this is optional of course all you really need is these
four bags well however many bags you calculate and uh you know the silica uh but these are just some
extras i’ll be mixing a little bit of um seed with my stuff when we put it down um I’ll show you what
I’m doing and then also I’ll be adding a little bit of soil amendment in which is humic acid and
biochar this humar by the Andrews real good stuff i’ve been using it for many many seasons um so
highly recommend that and then we’ll also be spraying the yard today the front yard with the
humic 12 the liquid humic acid and then um also the Green County F or Green County fertilizer is
the company i recommend their products as well uh this root growth this stuff’s really really
good um this is going to help especially with the uh the seeds that we’re putting down and it helps
with compacted soil and soil life and everything and another thing that a trick that you can do is
if you put down molasses like sprayable molasses um there’s a product I have on the way i’ll do a
whole video on it um but you want to once you put down humic and like a root grove stimulator
or anything like that you always want to um put down some sort of a a food for your lawn
and for your soil um it could be something organic there’s a lot of different things out there but
I’ll show you the product when it comes what I use it’s basically got if I remember correctly I
think it’s like corn dissolate and molasses and some micronutrients that are in it um but real
good stuff um a dirt booster by the Andersons is also another good one it’s got to be a little bit
warmer right now believe it or not it’s only 57° outside uh it’s overcast windy there’s snow all
over the mountain still so we haven’t even gotten to like me adding like good amounts of nitrogen
yet uh that’s coming up in like a week or so um so these products um this is going to get the job
done for you um they’re all extra stuff you don’t need them for this project uh but these will help
establish your lawn and this will help fill in and get those seeds growing and germinating a
lot quicker too um and it’ll help cut back on watering in the long run as well um hydroane
also um but yeah we got the top soil we got the leveling rake and then um of course the silica
sand and then we need over here uh we’ll just need a shovel don’t use a short shovel use a regular
full shovel so you don’t break your back i highly recommend that you if you don’t have a full size
shovel get one and it be your best friend when you’re working with stuff like this and I think
that’s pretty much it and then we’ll be using this rake uh this is my lawn rake that I have um
but you can also use a rake like this or any rake that’s just like this it doesn’t matter and if
you don’t not if you do not have a lawn leveler um get one uh get a heavy one get the RNR or
whatever um the be I can’t remember it right now but I’ll put the link for it um for mine
uh but if you don’t have one of those get one you don’t technically need it uh honestly unless
you’re doing your whole yard um you can get away with a rake so uh but you know it’s just you’re
kind of scarifying more when you’re using a rake uh rather than with this where when you pull back
not only is it pushing everything down nice and flat but it’s also pulling back bark or mulch
or rocks or anything else that you don’t want to be pushed down so that’s why I recommend them um
but you don’t totally need it unless you’re doing your whole yard um and this is just fixing spots
individual spots um but yeah and then the Gorilla cart of course or your wheelbarrow which is what
this thing is uh sitting in so that’s pretty much all we’re going to be using today and then the
real mower I haven’t decided yet i’ll probably use the web um though yeah we’ll probably go with
the web today and then I’ll just be using El Toro here boom um so Briggs and Strat but pretty basic
uh equipment um nothing too crazy here all right so this is the area that we’ll be working in
and I can show you what I mean that it’s a little uneven you can kind of see how if I follow
down to about here then it comes and flattens up so this amount of space that we’ll be working in
is really going to kind of be from here to like right about there something like that kind of like
that so that’s what I’m fixing today and then um to give you an example of everything and then I’ll
be cutting both sides of my front property um but uh yeah uh we will be doing a project soon where
I’ll be leveling the entire front like this on my other side but yeah let’s get all this stuff
out um but first I’ll get to mowing so uh let’s go heat heat um but here’s the after after we mow and real
and as you can see it’s nice and flat over here except for one little tiny spot right here um
but you can just see I can see it from here but uh this is what we’ll be trying to fix of
course unless you’re leveling your whole yard you do not need to totally strip this down the
bare soil you don’t need to do that if you’re leveling your whole your entire yard then it’s a
little bit different because that’s a lot more and uh you’re not working with one low spot you’re
working with a bunch of uppots when we do that project I’ll show you exactly what I mean by that
but this one area this is just a low spot um the grass is actually if you look at it right here
the last time I threw a little bit of seed you can actually see where some of those were growing in
so basically um yeah we’ll be good to go here um but let’s go ahead and mix i’m going to mix in the
garage and the only reason I’m going to mix in the garage is because it’s quite windy out here right
now so I’ll set up the time lapse and everything and we’ll get it mixed in the garage uh but only
cuz it’s windy and I don’t want to breathe that crap in um so don’t want to breathe the silica
in i’m going to mix real quick we’ll take this thing out i might even be able to get away with
it like right here in between the garbage cans which might be the spot no no it’s just It’s just
too windy um but I just don’t want it getting all over the place um but yeah let’s get to work on
this and um I think it looks awesome it It looks real nice real nice and flat i’m excited
to reel cut the other side and things are starting to fill in um it’s been about a week and
a half now since snow is covering it i think it’s looking pretty awesome um but yeah let me get this
stuff mixed and then we’ll get the leveling let’s go heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat all All right so pretty much done with I’d say
everything except for one thing we still got to add in the seed and then I saved that i actually
saved that last bag of top soil because what we’re going to do is we’re going to pour that
in to here we’re going to pour that into the uh the cart here and then we’re going to mix
it with the perennial ryrass and then we’re going to smooth it out a layer over this and then
we’re going to get the humic down and all that other stuff and then that’ll be the end of the
video and we water it in that’s pretty much it all right well got that done now we’re mixing
now the uh Humic 12 um like I was telling you by uh Green County and we’ll also be using the
root growth one the RGS as well also very good stuff i recommend all their stuff um but the seed
layer is down looking good and if you really want you can come back with mushroom compost or
whatever you want to put back down on this to protect it um we should be pretty good i really
worked it in here um but it looks awesome um so I’m going to go ahead and get this put into
my backpack sprayer measure it out and then um yeah I’ll get it sprayed down get
it watered in and then we’ll finish up uh over on the other side here with me
just mowing and real mowing that’s it and uh but looking awesome let’s uh
let’s get that product down let’s go heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat and uh yeah I think that’s going to
that’s going to do it for this for this one um all good stuff uh hope you learned
something hope you kind of know what to uh to use now um whether you’re using the sand
if you refer to my other one how I did it in the backyard or if you’re doing it this way
either way is going to work real good for you um if you’ve got that clay soil so um but yeah
and all the products that I use they work so um I very very rarely have ever come
across stuff that does not work so you know uh but that stuff definitely works and uh yeah
thanks for watching the uh the yard Dad hope you enjoyed this one like subscribe do what you
do um yeah see you on the next one hey hey hey
7 Comments
I’m going to buy the product you recommended. Thanks so much. You have helped me so much
Thanks for wearing mask. I live near a silica mine and the stuff is quite dangerous to breath in.
Colostrum cured my allegies and asthma…years ago.
Silica sand is a carcinogen.
Happy silicosis to your lungs.
is that a petra hd sprayer and if so where did you get the wand setup
Is New Mexico clay soil? Great video👍🏼
Where to get silica sand in the GTA (Toronto & area, Canada)? Googling didn't help much. Our local garden center and hardware stores have normal sand only.