Pretty sandy soil in gulf coast Alabama. Hoping to get some grass to grow. Right now it has patches of green, some fescue, some Bermuda. Lots of sand.
The shade and pine trees are a different story. But believe I want to add some wood chips from a tree service and cover with pine straw. Similar footprint to picture. But trees, slope for drainage, and sand mean most anything between trees and street mean the tree is going to win the fight for water or heavy rains may wash any seeing it not the street
Anyway, thoughts on growing grass. Considering to add 2-3” of 50/50 soil compost mix as topper before seeding with a mix of Bermuda and clover just to establish roots and nitrogen in the soil but wound there be an advantage to aerating the soil between adding amendments and over seeding?
There are no sprinklers, so looking to late Feb/early March and take advantage of rainy season and hope to establish prior to dry and heat.
by mpython1701
2 Comments
Panhandle Florida here. You should do a soil test to see where your at currently prior to ammendments. Youll be surprised at how much lime you’ll have to spread if its the same as mine was. Centipede grows well with our sandy soil. Ditch the mulch volcanoes.
Honestly sand is great soil to grow grass on, grass can grow very deep roots through it, which allows it soak up more water than it otherwise could… However, there’s a few problems with your situation:
– shade like you said, bermuda hates shade
– competition for moisture between the tree roots and grass (tree wins)
– shallow tree roots being a physical barrier for grass roots.
– contrary to popular myth, pine needles DON’T acidify soil, but on sandy soil they can make the soil hydrophobic as they decompose.
So:
– consider doing strictly tall fescue for the shade tolerance. I wouldn’t recommend planting tall fescue any time other than fall.
– maybe run a heavy duty tiller through to chop up thin shallow roots.
– if there are too many thick shallow roots, you’ll want to loosen as much soil as you can and then lay down enough new soil to cover the roots by atleast 2 inches.
– apply humic acid a few times. Long story short it counteracts the hydrophobicity of the decomposed pine needles. It has some strong immediate effects in that regard, and some slower subtler effects… So this might be a thing you need to do 2 or 3 times a year for a few years. It also directly promotes root growth. Seaweed/kelp extract also pushes root growth.
– it would also be a good idea to apply granular biochar. It does the water and nutrient retention thing that you want, but it’s able to gradually self incorporate unlike compost.