All I have to say is that the neighbors put down a store bought slide (yellow) for a day (6-7 hrs.) and you could see the shape of the slide perfectly in the form of dead grass for the rest of the year.

The poly that I have purchased is called Panda Film. (Used mostly in hydroponics) It is black on one side and white on the other. Per the manufacturer it is supposed to block the majority of light, with the white side reflecting 90%. This should prevent the magnifying effect of a clear film and water. It shouldn't be too hard to take down the slide at the end of the night to prevent too much damage, but the pool at the landing is another story.

It's not the light--it's the heat.

Alright, so assuming I am going to damage the grass in pursuit of fun, what can I do to minimize the damage? Only keep the slide in place on the day we are going to use it? How about raking the grass after I remove the slide to help it stand back up and not stay matted down?

I'm not trying to give you a hard time. Twenty years ago I might have done the same thing for the fun of it. These days I try to do everything I can not to damage my lawn. I just really have no experience in this or advice. Take a shot at it and see what happens. Let us know how it turns out. If it works maybe I'll set one up in the backyard for the g'kids.

So I am changing up the plan a bit, which should be a bit more yard friendly as well as back friendly. I still plan on having the giant slide, but instead of bringing in sand and sand bags I will just buy a half dozen "Pool Noodles." You know the big foam floaty noodles? They make some that are a good 6" diameter. If I put those under the plastic at the end of the slide, the water should naturally pool up. Wont be quite so deep, but much easier to manuever and clean up after the day. One site I found shows them applying velcro under the plastic (before the water was on) and using it to hold the noodles in place. I will let you know how it goes.

As far as the lawn goes:

Any thoughts on letting the grass grow out to 8" or so before the slide goes in? Hoping this will add cushion.

Am I more likely to damage the grass if I let it grow out?

Fist of all this sounds like a hoot! Above all, have fun. You can always fix the lawn.

To minimize the damage I would let it grow as you are thinking. Second, I would make this a picnic project. Get all the early arrivals involved in building it. This will minimize the time the plastic is smothering the grass. Then pull it up quickly when the party is over.

When you mow again, do not scalp it back down. Bring it down a little at a time. Scalping it back to 4 inches from 8 would add more stress to the situation. You might need to use a string trimmer to bring it down slowly. Cut a little the next day and a little more a couple days later. Repeat until you are mowing again.

During the summer you are not advised to fertilize with chemicals. You can; however, fertilize with organic fertilizer every day of summer if you like. It works in a different way and will not burn or stress the lawn. Fertilizing every 2 weeks after the event might help speed the recovery.

What kind of grass are we talking about? Fescue or Kentucky blue?

I with you could edit your posts after you mistakenly hit the Submit button. That should start out First of all..., not Fist of all. That's hoot all by itself.

Not sure on the grass type. The previous owner put it in, and I just bought the house. It is definitely a mix. I think there is a fair amount of KBG in the lawn because my black lab regularly kills large spots which quickly turn a crispy brown until after a good rain or two. Then the spots spring back to life and turn a nice deep (fertilized) green.

Other reason I think it is KBG is the density compared to other parts of my yard. It is extremely thick like carpet whereas the rest of my yard is thin and patchy.

Yes you are describing KBG. The reason your dog pee kills the grass is you are not fertilizing it enough when you fertilize.

You can speed up the recovery of the dog pee spots with a heaping handful of sugar on each spot. Water it only enough to melt the sugar down into the soil. Sugar feeds the bacteria that are needed to process the dog pee. When they get sugar they increase their population and they can handle the dog pee faster.

we had a lot of fun with the ready made slip and slide but it always messes up the lawn. The lawn gets so wet and muddy and with all of the pounding, you will get ruts. There is so much compaction because of all of the water. Just enjoy it and take care of it later. But it is not something you want to do to your lawn very often. Let someone else use their lawn next time!

Compaction is something that didn't come to mind but it should be a concern. You can recover from any damage but it could be you need to baby the area for awhile.

So I did a test run this weekend with the slide. It has been 3 days and so far the lawn has recovered nicely. The only noticeable damage is in the center part of the slide where all the grass has laid down sideways. I jumped on this right after taking down the slide by gently raking the grass upright and watering well (odd as it sounds). The soil under the slide was still bone dry after we finished up. I figured a good soaking would help the stressed grass recover better.

I will add: prior to testing the slide, we hadn't had rain in 11 days. My sandy soil had been dried out for well over a week. Add to it high daily temps in the high 80's, and pushing 90 several days. Needless to say the lawn was already stressed badly before setting up the slide.

So my pre-slide lawn prep will be as follows:

- Starting 2 weeks before the event I will stop cutting the grass. (I want it to be very tall on the day of)
- Starting now I will be adding a round of Milorganite fertilizer. (Been wanting to do this anyways to improve the soil)
- Starting 2-3 weeks before the event I will begin watering the grass to ensure it is all healthy and actively growing. (I don't water at all right now)
- About 4-5 days before the event I plan to cut the grass adjacent to the slide where people will be walking back up to the top.

I am not going to setup the slide early. It only took me about 20 minutes to prep the slide this time around, and during the event I will have plenty of eager helpers. The morning of the event I am going to get out early and water the area under the slide before putting the slide down. This should soften the soil a bit and make the ride a bit smoother (Something I should have done during the test run...ouch) The landing "pool" will be a separate sheet of poly that is black to keep the water warmer. This "pool" will be constructed with pool noodles underneath to form the bowl shape, prevent injury, and make setup and tear down a breeze.

I took pictures, but will have to post them separately. I will keep you posted!

People are probably going to yell at me for saying this (I'm not extremely experienced either at this point...just starting out like you). But I'm a big proponent of (gently) raking the grass like you said after exposure to traffic to get it upright again, even though it's not recommended by experts. Some say never rake because you'll damage the crowns of the plants, and leaves are expendable...but I agree with the raking you did, because matted grass often becomes dead grass quickly due to suffocation and disease. Lately we've had a lot of heavy trucks and stuff going over one part of the lwan, and I've been a raking fanatic every single time afterword. Granted, I have ryegrass in that area, which tolerates mechanical abuse well. But I do not want my grass matted, because in my experience that causes big problems. I'd rather have it torn up from the excessive truck traffic on rainy days than to have it matted down and die out. The way I see it, yse, the leaves are expendable, but if they're all matted down, you're going to suffocate the roots and maybe kill the plant. My only regret was mowing the lawn last week. If only I had left it long, less of the roots would have gotten pulled out when a vehicle with deep treads went over it. In any case, it will be an interesting experiment to see how well the rye grass regenerates. I'll probably shoot some photos over teh next few weeks and post them in my thread to trask the progress. I might consider a low concentration nitrogen application to that area when the grass starts to come back (even though you're not really supposed to fertilize this time of year). Regardless, I'm redoing that area this August. And I'm redoing it with TTTF and KBG, not PR. By then, there won't be a need for truck tolerance. Worst case, you can reseed later like I'm going to do.

Good advice by DChall. I did the same thing on a smaller scale years ago.

My main advice is to keep the plastic wet while you have it on the grass to keep it cooler. I don't know about your area, but in mine I have killed a lot of bluegrass/fescue by leaving kids plastic pools and slip and slides on them for just a hot afternoon. That happened with both clear and colored plastic water toys.I think it is the temp the stuff gets as much as anything. That happened with both clear and colored plastic water toys.

But, that shouldn't alarm you, if you keep it wet/cooler and then remove when done, with your sandy soil and the other precautions you are taking, I don't think you'll have any big long term damage. Give it a little extra water, organic fertilizer and mowing and it'll be good as new in no time.