A lawn master named morpheuspa is caring for two lawns - his and his mother's. His is all improved Elite cultivars. His mother's is contractor grade. The mother's lawn is gorgeous due to his care. I believe he has demonstrated that even contractor grade Kentucky bluegrass can be the best lawn on the block if you get the soil tuned up and follow proper care. In fact here is a pic of his mother's lawn... If you want the best lawn in the neighborhood, then the Logan Labs soil test is necessary. New seed may not be necessary. I would see what you can accomplish this summer and, about mid-August, decide whether you need different grass. Renovating is a lot of work followed by a lot of stress waiting for the seed to come in. Then you are faced with a 3-year wait as the grass plants mature. If you already have mature grass, I would just make the very best of it first before jumping into the pool of renovation. But also necessary is mastering the basics of lawn care as follows... Basics of Lawn Care After reading numerous books and magazines on lawn care, caring for lawns at seven houses in my life, and reading numerous forums where real people write in to discuss their successes and failures, I have decided to side with the real people and dispense with the book and magazine authors. I don't know what star their planet rotates around but it's not mine. With that in mind, here is the collected wisdom of the Internet savvy homeowners and lawn care professionals summarized in a few words. If you follow the advice here you will have conquered at least 50% of all lawn problems. Once you have these three elements mastered, then you can worry about weeds (if you have any), dog spots, and striping your lawn. But if you are not doing these three things, they will be the first three things suggested for you to correct. Watering Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an inch in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. Do not spread this out and water for 10 minutes every day. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. If that does not work, then you might have to water more than once per week during the summer's hottest period. Deep watering grows deep, drought resistant roots. Infrequent watering allows the top layer of soil to dry completely which kills off many shallow rooted weeds. You will have to learn to judge when to water your own lawn. If you live in Las Vegas your watering will be different than if you live in Vermont. Adjust your watering to your type of grass, humidity, wind, and soil type. It is worth noting that this technique is used successfully by professionals in Phoenix, so...just sayin.' The other factors make a difference. If you normally water 1 inch per week and you get 1/2 inch of rain, then adjust and water only 1/2 inch that week. Mowing Every week mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. However, bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses will become the most dense when they are mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. In fact there are special mowers that can mow these grasses down to 1/16 inch. Dense grass shades out weeds, keeps the soil cooler, and uses less water than thin grass. Tall grass can feed the deep roots you developed in #1 above. Tall grass does not grow faster than short grass nor does it look shaggy sooner. Once all your grass is at the same height, tall grass just looks plush. Fertilizing Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 5 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. Follow the directions on the bag and do not overdo it. Too little is better than too much. At this point you do not have to worry about weed and feed products - remember at this point you are just trying to grow grass, not perfect it. Besides once you are doing these three things correctly, your weed problems should go away without herbicide. It is too late to fertilize with chemical fertilizers this summer; however, you can still fertilize with organics all summer long. You can start with organics before you get your soil test back - you will always have a nitrogen deficiency. Between the basic lawn care (water and mowing), organic ferts, and the corrections to micro nutrients prescribed by the soil test, your lawn should look amazing by August. You can introduce yourself to organic lawn care by applying alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. No, you won't be overrun by rabbits. They only eat rabbit food when confined and fed nothing else. Get the alfalfa pellets at any feed store. Check prices between rabbit chow and alfalfa pellets. They are the same product but sometimes there is a difference from brown bag to brown bag. Spray the soap and molasses and you are officially on your way.

Yes, you can aerate before verticutting. That would actually help to slice up the soil plugs. The purpose of verticutting is to create shallow slits for the seed to fall into, contact the soil and retain moisture. The slits keep the seed relatively in place, unless you get a real flooding rain. So when you verticut in two directions, you initially get what looks like a grid of grass coming up, but it fills in. I go a little crazy with a verticutter and mow in two directions and then do two directions on the diagonal, but I can get obsessive when I work on a lawn. You can fertilize all at once, after it's all done. That's the fun part. Use a starter fertilizer that contains extra phosphorus for robust root development. Then in mid-November, use a regular lawn fertilizer that is high in nitrogen, a quick release form. The purpose of that last feeding is to get the plants to produce a lot of food resources (sugars) that are then moved into the roots when the plants go dormant for winter. Come springtime, the grass uses those stored foods to emerge from dormancy, thicken up and grow nice and green. There is really nothing you can do to deal with weeds until the grass becomes established, so don't worry about weeds now. Get the turf up and growing. You don't want to do anything to weeds until you have mowed at least twice, but I would wait until next spring to spray. Young grass plants can be vulnerable to lawn weed killers. Also, and this is not fun, if you get a dry winter, you need to keep watering the new grass. It will need about a half inch of moisture every two or three weeks just to stay alive. That probably won't be an issue for you, but down here in KC, I have actually had to hook up hoses and water young turf in the winter. You ask good questions. Don't apologize. And it IS worth doing well, because it's a big job and the seed, fertilizer and equipment rentals are not cheap! Here is a K-State publication on fertilizing lawns. Most if not all of this can apply to SD. Here is a link that might be useful: Fertilizing Kansas Lawns

There are some people who talked about getting TIF-Grand but I have not read about their successes. I'm not a fan of zoysia. I have a spot of it as an experiment. At first I thought it was great, but it did not compete well with bermuda. Disappointed, but at least it's not my main lawn. I was also disappointed that we let it go dormant one summer and it never greened up again that season. It greened up fine the next April, but that was a long time. And that's when the bermuda got in. I see that in the full zoysia lawns in my neighborhood. It is definitely not all it's cracked up to be. I have another suggestion for the lawn. If you are patient, do the power rake only on the grass in the shade. Then put down only enough St Aug for the shady area. Make sure that takes well and sit back. The St Aug will spread and spread to take over the bermuda. All you have to do is pamper the St Aug and don't pamper the bermuda. That means mow all the grass at your mower's highest setting, fertilize infrequently, and water deeply and infrequently. St Aug spreads when the temps are between 60 degrees and 80, so you'll have two windows of opportunity. It will spread in the spring and again in the fall. It should spread about 5 feet each time. I let that happen at my house in George West, TX and now have an additional 3,000 square feet of lawn (acre lot started mostly in weeds). SuperSod mentioned compaction. Unless you've been parking the car on the lawn, playing football in the rain, or grazing livestock in the rain, then your soil is not compacted. It is very likely hard, but hard and compacted are different things. Compacted comes from driving all the air out of soggy soil. That's how adobe bricks are made. Hard soil comes from reduced population of beneficial microbes - chiefly fungi. You can get those back very easily. Apply 3 ounces of any clear shampoo per 1,000 square feet with a hose end sprayer. Follow that up with at least 1/2 inch of water. Repeat every few weeks as necessary. I did mine in San Antonio twice in 2011 and it's still soft today (checked after the rain yesterday). You'll know it worked when your soil becomes very soft after deep watering and then becomes very firm again a day or two later. That's normal. Give that a try. In my opinion burying compost is way over rated. Shampoo, deep watering, and routine use of alfalfa pellets should be plenty enough to boost your organic matter.

Putting your refrigerator against an outside wall with the entry door opening against it will not only bang up your refrigerator but could also make it difficult for you to open your refrigerator doors entirely in order to remove the shelves and/or veggie drawers for a thorough cleaning if your refrigerator hinge were to be on the left. What is outside that exterior door -- any chance it is a porch or deck and you could change the hinged door for a sliding glass one? If you know you will have a double door refrigerator, and since you could clean shelves without removing them, the remaining concern would be if you were planning to put a wall on the right side of the refrigerator. Wouldn't; just leave the side of the refrigerator show between the countertop and overhead cabinet and set your refrigerator far enough out so the cabinets don't interfere with opening the refrigerator door all the way. Consider moving your wall ovens to the right: have the wall to the right of your wall ovens be even with the opening to the right of it so that you can put a wider countertop between the cooking surface and the ovens. You need space to set a large heavy pot on both sides of any cooktop. Is the dining area within this kitchen your only dining area? If not, you might well consider other alternatives in lieu of both an island and a table -- you could create one very long island ... ... but only put base cabinets in the one end of it nearest the sink; ... or put base cabinets only on each end and put your beverage fridge on one end and other storage in the other end; ... or you could put your base cabinets and beverage fridge only in the middle with a "pedestal" table in the "dining" end of the kitchen and, perhaps, a "desk" end or a pedestal for seating for two nearer to the sink. http://xlian.me/the-most-attractive-bar-height-kitchen-table-island-home-decor/kitchen-island-ideas-breakfast-bar-kitchen-island-spectacular-in-bar-height-kitchen-table-island-prepare/ You can keep the island countertop a rectangle the same width for its entire length and/or have it widen beyond the double ovens and still have room for your six chairs. In a smaller kitchen, if at all possible, round the four corners of any rectangular island.