Hi dchall_san_antonio, thanks for the follow-up post. You are spot on with regards to the unevenness of sod. I did my front yard last season and was instantly dissatisfied with the results with regard to the undulations. So I had to spend more time and more effort to get a result that I wanted from the outset. Hence my obsession was born with having a perfectly level yard. I searched the internet determined to get a better result. I read about sprigging, but found almost zero info on how the regular Joe could do it at home. I took bits of info from golf green construction, sport fields, bowling greens and then applied this to what would work at home for me using everyday tools and non-specialized products. The cost was also significantly less than buying sod for the entire project which is quite expensive in Australia (around A$9.00m2) I will try by best to answer the questions that you have put forth; My patio area faces roughly east, so the sun passes directly over the yard in summer. In winter it moves to the north (the left hand side looking from patio). Long shadows do cast to the south, however more so in winter as the sun is lower in sky. I cultivated the soil using a rotary hoe or a gas powered tiller to till the soil to a depth of around 6 inches. I then made a contraption of 4 x 6 foot pieces of timber set parallel with 4 x braces running perpendicular to the long pieces. I attached a rope to this and then spent the next few days dragging this contraption back and forth, round and round, up and down until it was as level as I could make it. I let it settle for about 2 weeks, then spent another weekend with my new wooden friend. I got the idea from this video; Leveling yard After this I brought in around 2 cubic meters of builders sand for final grade. I built a smaller version of the wood , this time using aluminum and a handle that you use like a rake to move the soil around. I then watered this to the point of runoff and let it dry. I used the lawn level again to level out any minor undulations and watered it again. Finally I used a long piece of timber to check for grade and undulations. At this point I was satisfied. The high tech tools used to cut up the sod was a pair of garden shears and a pair of HD sissors! No wonder my hands were dead after about 6 hours. I put the cut sprigs into a big container of water for about an hour, then put them in a old wet sheet in the shade until I was ready to broadcast them. I made sure I had enough to cover one irrigation zone before I spread them such that i could irrigate immediately after planting. Once I realised that this method was not going to work I borrowed a leaf shredder and put smaller pieces of sod through the hopper. At first I was concerned that I cut them too small and they would not root, but they did take, however at a slower rate than compared with the larger pieces. I did this in October, which is mid-spring here. Funnily enough we had a really mild spring which didn't really help with the grow-in. When temps got above 25C you could literally watch it grow! This is not common practise for establishing home lawns in Australia. Some turf suppliers do offer what they call 'shredded turf' but these companies are not in my state. The methods these companies advocate could not be translated the method I used. Next time I would try and actually source the sprigs, rather than cutting up sod. It is so time consuming and very messy. Other than that I am really happy with how it has come up. I said to my wifey that if I ever plant another lawn I will be stolonizing it. The real reason I wanted to spend the time doing this post is purely for the fact that I have learned so much from this forum (even as a lurker) and I wanted to take the time and give something back to other forum members who have taken the time with their experiences. In particular David's thread which I used to level my front yard. Here are some pics of that project if anyone is interested; Front This is disc roller below; PS I will work on my photography skills This post was edited by SimonR on Mon, Jan 27, 14 at 0:35

1604/Potranco = helpful. Here's a brief rundown of bermuda care: Monthly during the growing (green) season Fertilize with a very high nitrogen fertilizer Weekly during the growing season Mulch mow 2x and water 1x. Mow at 1 to 2 inches. Water a full inch all at one time. Measure it with cat food or tuna cans around the yard. For more details, find the Bermuda Bible online and memorize it. It's not as long as the real Bible, so that's a good thing. Grassy weeds look like grass. Broadleaf weeds look like clover or dandelions. Grassy weeds need a grass killer but that will kill the bermuda if it has started to green up. Broadleaf weeds need something like Weed-B-Gone. Ironite recently changed their formula so that it is now not much more than simple fertilizer. It used to be industrial sludge, so this is much better. If the bermuda looks yellowish, use greensand instead. It works much better than Ironite and costs much less. You will never need lime in Texas. Here is SA we live on top of 1,000 feet of limestone. You can't get limier than here. Our problem is acidifying the soil, not liming it. You should find Fertile Garden Supply on 1604 near Bandera Hwy (south of Bandera I believe). Go in and smell the soils. It's quite a resource. You've probably driven by it many times. They specialize in soil materials but have lots of stuff. You can get greensand there. You said the builders laid out the grass. This is excellent. Sodded bermuda is one of the best turf grasses you can find. Just start taking care of it and you should be off to the races. If you want to try organic fertilizers, you live in the right city. I have not priced any of the animal feeds this year, but I go back and forth between corn based fertilizer and alfalfa pellets. These animal feed products also feed the microbes living in your soil. When they are well fed (20 pounds per 1,000 square feet), then they will feed your plants. It's a biological wonder how this works. It will take 3 full weeks to see the effect. If you used it now on dormant bermuda this late in the dormant season, the soil food should be ready to go in 3 weeks. Ladybug is good as is Medina Growing Green. There's another new one on the market. Ask at Fertile Garden. It is poultry litter based but not Medina or Ladybug. Soybean and cottonseed meals are outrageously expensive in San Antonio. Otherwise, if you want to use chemical fertilizers, wait until you have mowed the bermuda for the second time to ensure the roots are actively growing. Then fertilize lightly. Bermuda does not need much incentive to grow fast early in the spring. If you go too heavy too early, you'll be mowing every day to keep up with the grass.

Weed n feed tells me they don't know what they're doing. Can you post a picture of the weeds? Preferably take the picture in the shade or on a cloudy day. Is shade an issue on your lawn? Do you have trees? If shade is not an issue, then this is likely going to be a watering issue. In either case it is not something a lawn care company can solve. What is the watering regimen? How often and how long do you water? Crabgrass is a hint that you're watering too often, but that would be hard to do with the water restrictions. This has been a banner year for rainfall. So the question is, how often and how long do you water between rain storms? And, perchance, are you on the southwest side of town where the soil is sandy?

As long as you have fresh, green grass, the rabbits will go for that first. Rabbits only eat alfalfa pellets when in captivity and they don't have anything fresh to eat. But having said that, once you put the alfalfa pellets down, you should moisten them (not drench them). They will swell up like giant green worms and fall apart. Once they have swollen up, they become hard to eat for any critter except the microbes. If you want to be sure, you can drag a push broom over the swollen pellets and they will fall apart down into the turf. Rabbit poop is an excellent fertilizer! There are no liquid fertilizers for a lawn that are worth anything. Even Medina Hasta Gro is not good. Why? Because a lawn needs pounds and pounds of nitrogen. Liquids can apply fractions of an ounce and nothing more. Liquids are good for what we call micro nutrients. Besides, Medina Hasta Gro is not organic. If you listen to Bob Webster on weekend morning radio (550 AM), he is very organic but does not seem to understand that Hasta Gro is a chemical fertilizer. You can soften your soil now so that it will accept the moisture. Spray 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet of baby shampoo or any clear shampoo. Spray that on your watering day right before you water. Then water a full inch all at once. Measure that inch with tuna or cat food cans. Next week water normally. The following week repeat the shampoo before watering. After the second treatment your soil should be considerably different. It should feel soft under foot right after you water and get hard again during the days before you water again. This takes the place of core aeration. This is not a trick or a gimmick. The only difference between this treatment and what the professionals use is they spend $70 per gallon for their surfactant and you will pay $1 for 15 ounces of Alberto Vo5 or generic baby shampoo at the dollar store. The shampoo will last a long time if you water weekly in the summer and monthly in the cool months. The last time I did it was 2011 and my soil still feels soft when wet. I use an Ortho adjustable hose-end sprayer to spray shampoo. It doesn't matter what adjustment you use if you do it like this. Measure your lawn. Let's say it is 2,000 square feet. That means you'll need 6 ounces of shampoo (that's a minimum by the way). Pour 6 ounces into the sprayer bottle and fill it with water. Then you can use any setting on the sprayer as long as you spray evenly and spray it all out onto the grass. One of the gurus on another forum tried this using 50 ounces per 1,000 square feet every weekend and there were no problems. We know that 3 ounces works and we know that 50 ounces won't hurt anything, so it appears very hard to make a mistake with this.