Can you post a picture of it? I was recently surprised after seeing a yard that the owner claimed was rocks. It really was rocks. Usually (I think) "rocky soil" is more like what many of us have and live with. Get something growing. If it is weeds, fine, just get roots in the ground. Start watering right (below), mowing, and fertilizing. All that will do now is get roots growing and start the biological cycles that need to happen before you can really have a great lawn. Here is the basic, 123 of lawn care. Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an hour in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. 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. Mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. Bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses are the most dense when mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. Dense grass shades out weeds and uses less water when tall. Dense grass feeds the deep roots you're developing in 1 above. Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 4 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. In your case, I would suggest starting with both compost (at 1 cubic yard per 1,000 square feet) and an organic fertilizer. The easiest and cheapest thing to find anywhere is alfalfa pellets. You can probably find soy bean meal, too. Both will come in 50-pound bags at the local feed store. Spread them at 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. They are both organic fertilizers and will help your soil biology tremendously. You can apply those as often as you want and can afford all summer long. The more you apply the faster your soil will become better. You could also spray it with molasses and milk every other week. Mix them 50/50 in an Ortho hose end sprayer and set the dial for 3 ounces per gallon. Put about 3 ounces of mix onto every 1,000 square feet. Milk provides enzymes the soil microbes can use, and molasses helps feed them. Then in the fall you can decide how you want to proceed with synthetic fertilizers or with organics. But adding synthetic fertilizers now to a relatively sterile soil will prolong the benefit rather than speed it up. The organics will actually help even the worst soil. Coddling weeds all summer may seem futile but it is better than nothing. At least it will give you practice and you'll be surprised how nice mowed and fertilized weeds can look. Weeds can be eliminated pretty easily by several means, so don't get too worried about that. For that matter, Dutch white clover is considered a weed but it is very beneficial to the soil. You might find some clover seed and grow that all summer. Before you do anything in the fall, get a soil test so you know exactly how much of what to add. All this may be off, though, depending on the picture you post. You may really have to get rid of the rocks first.

"(What exactly is topsoil?)" That's a topic that gets debated (sometimes heatedly) on the Soil, Compost, Mulch forum pretty regularly. I don't think there are any regulations around what can be labeled topsoil, so if you buy topsoil, you never know what you're getting. I bought a truckload of "topsoil" once, and it seemed to be a mixture of the native clay, shredded trees and pea gravel. I bought a bag of "topsoil" at a big box store, and it looked more or less like finished compost. As has already been pointed out, you've been steadily improving your clay and it will continue to improve if you continue adding compost, grass clippings and shredded leaves, it'll continue to improve. And if you use organic fertilizers, it'll improve more. Tilling would incorporate the OM deeper faster. The problem with tilling is that it is difficult to get the soil level after tilling. If you grade it (probably best to have it professionally graded), that will ensure it is level when it it graded. But if you've tilled in lots of OM, it is likely to break down unevenly, and you could end up with an uneven lawn.

Wow, this site has been here for 11 years. Every complaint under the sun and not one real solution to the problem of companies like HD and Lowes getting by with selling trash for what they call "Top Soil". I own a resort where we have no less than 2 acres of landscaped flower beds and 80 foot trees. I have been buying "top soil" from the two companies mentioned as well as from Walmart and one or two feed stores. I realize that top soil is not garden or potting soil, but I have been using it for planting and bedding material for over 35 years. I have gotten buy with using it in a mix of approximately 1/2 topsoil, 1/3 cow manure, one or two 2 lb coffee cans of peat moss and a can or two of vermiculite. This has given me tremendous success in planting everything from maple trees and crepes to using it to "enrich" the soil around a bulb. I have seen a great deviance in quality of "Top Soils", but have never seen anything like is being offered over the last 6 months. I usually buy 40 - 80 bags at a time, several times a year. I have used some for filling holes and dispersing it over soil that needs a little help with creating runners in the likes of Bermuda. But it is mostly used as stated above. In the last 4 months I have never experienced a "top soil" that has actually tainted the surrounding soil to a point that you cannot even grow a rye seed mix with fescue in it. Everything it touches gets killed or at least strained to the point of withering away. At first, I thought it might be one lot of soil that came in, but subsequent lots were contaminated as well. If you go back an read one lady's complaint about her Top soil smelling like gas, it tells me that the main problem with today's soil has been around for sometime. It has been mentioned that decomposition of manure and products like moss, or wood shavings may play a roll. Maybe so, but I suggest all you have to do is to wonder what is happening to the thousands of miles of road surface that has been hauled away during the repaving of our black top roads? Could it be that the petroleum odor is coming from ground up tar. Same color and everything. Most important, have you ever seen grass seed grow on the blacktop surface? Poor a little oil over your fresh seed and see if it grows. One final observation. Someone said to cut open the bags and let them dry out. Try it with todays "Top Soil" and you will end up with a brick. I used some to freshen up my Xmas poinsettias. When it dried, water would not penetrate it. When customer service was approached and aske to take it back, the answer was the same as it was years ago. Bring it back in the bag it came in and they will refund it. Right!! Beware, the "topsoil" you may be buying today is not suitable for use in a planting mix. I doubt you will be able to use it with out your skin burning and your nose running. I wish I had an alternative. Lowes did.....buy the mix already in the bag at a cost of 3 - 4 times the cost of today's Top soil. Captainjim

Topsoil is, quite simply, the top 4 to 12 inches of soil from someplace. It usually is not the best "stuff" to buy unless one simply wants some fill and what ever is bought, especially sight unseen, is not what is expected. When someone wants a good soil they should go and look at what is being offered and should use their eyes, nose, and hands to see, smell, and feel what they are buying. Good soil will look like a mixture of the mineral portion of soil (sand, silt, and clay) with some organic material in it, will smell like good rich earth (a very pleasant aroma), and feel a bit gritty, should ball up and should fall apart when poked. Color of good soil will be a dark brown. Many years ago spent foundry sand was sold around here as "topsoil" because it was black, but that was no indication of quality as many discovered over the years since it lacked any organic matter and the only way to make it better was to add the organic matter. There is also a place here that dredges the accumulated organic material from some of the local lakes, mixes that with sand, and sells it as soil claiming it is state tested because they mix in enough lime to make it pH neutral (7.0) and they send samples in to be tested periodically to be sure it is there. Some of our local landscape suppliers purchase truckloads of that soil and magically while the load is going down the highway to the yard it turns into "topsoil" which is what these landscape suppliers call it. Learn what good soil is and never buy soil sight unseen, and never take a sellers word that what is being sold is something called "topsoil". kimmq is kimmsr