Go to the forum for sprinklers and ask for help in planning your sprinkler system. Frankly if you have less than 1/2 acre to water, I'd do it with a hose and oscillating sprinkler. If you do it in the ground, rent a ditchwitch to dig the trenches, then be sure that every ounce of dirt goes back into the ditches. They will mound up at first but over the next 2-3 years, will settle back down to level. TRUST ME on this. I've done it both ways and the mounding up way works.

Don't till the soil to loosen it. If you do anything, just loosen the very top surface by dragging something across it. If you want to try to improve it between now and then, scatter some finished compost and water it at least once a month if Mother Nature doesn't water it for you. If you are at altitude above Denver, you might water it more often. Water it for an hour but never let the water run off. If that means watering for 1 minute at first, then that's the way to start. Let that 1 minute's worth soak in for 10 minutes and come back to try for longer. You might have to work up to it but don't make the mistake of watering for 10 minutes every day. Ideally you want to water a full inch, all at once.

When you throw your seed, follow up by rolling it down with a water fillable roller. The proper amount of water is when you can walk along behind the roller and you do not leave footprints in the soil. That might seem like a lot of pressure (pounds per square inch) on the soil but it amounts to the normal pressure applied by about about every animal that roams the earth. Why roll it? Because that is how Mother Nature seeds the soil. Ruminants eat grass and seeds fall on the ground where they are "trampled" into the soil. Interestingly, really getting after the trampling seems to work better out in pastures.

thanks dchall, what is the reason not to till? just wandering. if i need to add some soil treatments how do i mix it into the soil without tilling?

The best soil treatment is to mulch on top of the soil. Mother Nature does this every fall. She does not till at all, ever.

Tilling ultimately will result in an uneven soil surface. When you run a tiller by hand, the tiller will dig an uneven level under the surface. You can't do anything about that by hand. If you run it from a tractor you might have a chance but by hand you simply can't. Then you pile up fluffy soil on top of the uneven surface and level it off. The immediate result is you might have 3 inches of fluff in spots and 5-8 inches of fluff elsewhere. When all that settles, the deep fluffy parts will settle lower and the shallow fluffy parts will settle higher. This leaves the surface extremely uneven.

I realize this goes directly against ALL the common advice from every magazine and book available. However, I learned it here from reading years of people writing in about bumpy, lumpy, and uneven lawns. If you want a smooth profile at the top, you have to have consistent density of soil and a smooth profile underneath. That can only be done with a tractor like professional landscapers use. If yours was done professionally, leave it alone except for possible compost and regular watering (monthly for now).

thanks, it all makes sense about settling. so all additives i just sprinkle on top and rake in little or so? any suggestions on grass? i am thinking buffalo, but somewhere on this forum i read it doesnt do well with sandy soil.

Buffalo grass will do okay in Colorado, but only in FULL sun. And then you'll end up with a lawn that is dormant from sometime in September or October to mid May or so.

If you want a traditional lawn and can water during the summer, your best grass is probably Kentucky Bluegrass (KBG). If you're looking for something that may have a somewhat different color, but will stay green with very little water and will be green about the same time as KBG (which most of your neighbors have), you could go with Thickspike wheatgrass (I usually say Streambank, but thickspike does better in sandy soil), western wheatgrass (although you'd get better results with dormant seeding), and /or crested wheatgrass.

Streambank, thickspike and western are all native to the area. Crested was imported from Siberia but is well adapted to the intermountain west. Older varieties crested wheatgrass are bunch grasses, but newer varieties spread via rhizomes (as do the three natives).

i dont rally mind fr buffalo to go dormant that early, my bigger concern is watering. i will have sprinkler system but i heard these stories about kentucky requiring a loot of water.. i am wandering if that is really truth. comparing to buffalo, how much water does it need? when you say different color , what exactly does it mean. i googled thickspike wheat grass and results are more of a ornamental type of grass.
thanks

KBG makes a nicer turf, but it will require more water than Buffalograss to stay healhty and good looking.

Buffalograss has a dull seagreen color, Bluegrass is dark green when fertilized and watered.

If your concern is water conservation and not too worry about the dormancy period, then Buffalograss is your friend.

However, BP might have another option for you, he's the cool season drought tolerant grass expert in this forum.

what do you guys think of Reveille? it is supposed to be like KBG but much more drought resistant.

LISTEN TO AUTECK when he says...
However, BP might have another option for you, he's the cool season drought tolerant grass expert in this forum.

I would take that one step further. I think bpgreen is the premier expert on non traditional, water saving, lawns in the US and probably the world. If anyone wants to challenge that idea, please submit pictures of your lawn, tell us where you live, and let us know how often you water. bpgreen lives in your geographical neighborhood, has a normal looking green lawn, and only waters it on August 16th - well maybe more than that, but you get the idea. If I lived where you live and had full sun, I'd follow bpgreen's advice to the letter.

bp, I'm not saying this because I like you. I'm saying this because you are THE MAN! I like you because you are the man!!

i wander what bp has to say about reveille. :)

Brankulo, I'm familiar with Reveille and the other Texas-Kentucky Bluegrass hybrids. There're several university studies that have tested Tall Fescue, Kentucky Bluegrass, and the Hybrid Texas/Kentucky Bluegrasses. The jury still out there for drought tolerance.

In order for a grass plant to be "drought" tolerant it must be able to grow long and deep roots that can dig deeper for water. You can do that when you have deep soils, shallow soils in the other hand, restrict the growth of roots to a limit. You might have good soils, or not. Clay soils are usually shallow and hard to penetrate, Loam is best, but those are in California for the most part.

The Texas hybrid bluegrass look identical to the Elite Kentucky Bluegrass, except they are not as dark green. About 3 shades lighter.

Hard Fescues are very drought tolerant cool season grasses once established that will grow in part shade or full sun - you can look into that. Aurora Gold, Florentine, and Predator are a few of the newer cultivars.

I hope this helps.

igot one more question about site prep. what do i do about all the weeds that i am sure will start to grow before i plant. any suggestions?
thanks

Sorry it took me this long to respond. I haven't had a lot of free time lately.

I'm not familiar with Reveille, so I can't comment on it from personal experience. I've read mixed reviews on it in the past, both in terms of how much water savings it provides and in terms of how good it looks as a turf grass.

Buffalo grass is one of the most drought tolerant and drought resistant grasses around. Many people who plant it mix it with blue grama, another warm season native grass. Buffalo grass spreads via above ground stolons and blue grama is a bunch grass (although it will spread a little bit via tillers, especially if it is mowed regularly). Blue grama is more shade tolerant than buffalo grass, but both will do better in sun. Neither should be fertilized more than one time a year at a rate of about 1/2 lb N per 1000 sq ft. They'll stay green if you water them once or twice a month during the summer. They have deep roots, so it's best to water deeply.

The cool season grasses I mentioned (thickspike and western wheatgrass as natives and crested wheatgrass introduced) will only need a little more water than a buffalo grass/blue grama lawn. If I remember correctly, I watered three times last year, once in July and twice in August. But we had two inches of rain in June, which is unusual. I anticipate watering two to three times a month in a "normal" summer.

I have streambank wheatgrass instead of thickspike, but they are closely related (some people say that streambank is a variety of thickspike and not a distinct grass), so I assume the colors and blade thicknesses will be pretty close. My streambank wheatgrass is a very fine bladed grass (similar to a fine fescue) and I think it's a nice color, but it is definitely a paler shade of green than KBG or tall fescue. Western wheatgrass has wider blades than streambank wheatgrass and is almost blue in color, but I think it looks nice and it stays green with no water longer than streambank wheatgrass does. Once it goes dormant, it needs to be watered deeply to break out of dormancy because most of its root mass is deeper in the soil (at least a foot and down to 8-10 feet deep). Both of these spread via rhizomes. Western wheatgrass is harder to get started, but spreads more aggressively once it does get going.

Crested wheatgrass goes dormant faster than western wheatgrass, but snaps out of dormancy with even light rain. Older varieties were bunch grasses, but there are several varieties that spread slowly via rhizomes. I used to think it was too yellow to make a good lawn, but I found some grass growing this past summer that I identified as crested wheatgrass and realized that it darkens once it establishes.

The cool season grasses I've listed all have similar fertilization requirements to buffalo grass and blue grama. In fact, overfertilizing can harm them. They'll tolerate moist soil in the spring and fall, but if they get too much water, they may suffer.

Since the amount of water needed by these cool season grasses is only marginally more than what the buffalo grass/blue grama lawn needs, and the growing season is much longer, I think they make a better choice for a low water lawn in Colorado and Utah than the warm season options do.

bp, thank for sharing your knowledge. i tried to google wheatgrass i only got this only result for seed source, and it is for western wheatgrass. do you know of other source for streambank? thanks again.

http://www.hancockseed.com/application-area-239/native-grass-seed-119/western-wheatgrass-seed-203.html

Just to clarify, since your soil is sandy, you'll want to buy thickspike wheatgrass instead of streambank wheatgrass. They're pretty much the same thing, but thickspike is better adapted to sandy soil and streambank is better adapted to clay.

Western wheatgrass will also do well where you are.

I've bought seed from this place and they have good prices.

I've also bought seed from this place (it's somewhat local to me).

This place is also really good. The last time I checked, you couldn't order online, but they were great at answering questions and supplying the right seed.

I haven't bought from here but they have some good products and very knowledgeable people.

I reread the entire thread and I have to respond to David's post. I think he gives me more credit than I deserve. If you call the folks at the places I linked, you'll find some people who know much more than I do about these grasses. The main difference is that they've learned it in the lab and in field studies, and I've read some of their work and tried to plant an actual lawn based on their theoretical lawns.