Hi lqynn – those rocks are small enough that they should not present a problem. To grow a healthy lawn you will want to make sure that your soil is not compacted. If your soil is very hard you may want to till about 6-8" down to break it up and allow oxygen and water to permeate deeper. Also for your topsoil I recommend 2-3" of organic compost preferably minus manure which you can till into the soil if you do need to till. Lawns can be both incredibly water wasteful and have the potential to pollute waterways unless maintained organically. There are a number of alternative options that are both lush and green while reducing water use and fertilizer use that you may be interested in. That being said sometimes lawn is the best option if you have children that will be using it to play on in which case maintaining a lawn organically has the benefit of reducing water use as well as eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides. 1. Build healthy soils - till if needed and add compost and water 2. Use regionally appropriate grass seeds/sod 3. Water less frequently and more deeply – install efficient irrigation heads with a larger droplet size 4. Set your mower higher so the grass blades are longer – helps reduce watering 5. Dethatch and aerate to allow oxygen and moisture down into the soil 6. Add light layers of compost during off seasons vs. applying chemical fertlizers 7. Consider overseeding with clover as a natural nitrogen fixer. Best of luck with your project!!

Yes .. the yard does slope towards the house. there are these 4" drain buckets about 4 feet away from foundation that pick up the water and it does drain into a 4" pipe which goes all the way from backyard to the curb. However as I found out this winter, the drain buckets get overwhelmed in a consistent heavy downpour. We had very heavy rain in San Diego last winter and it does leave an inch of water pooling around the house. Unfortunately we are not renting. I am going to put more drain buckets upslope to catch the water say 15, 20 feet away from the house

James, I would urge you to consider simply "bombing off" existing vegetation with a non-selective herbicide like glyphosate (Roundup, et al), then allowing regrowth and resprouting of additional turf/weed seeds, repeat herbicide app, then plant your meadow plants whenever that sowing is recommended for your area. Your climate is apt to be far more mild than where I operate. Here, we do "dormant seeding" in late fall, after all chance of seed sprouting is safely past for that year. We want the frost action to work the seeds into the soil (it does so perfectly) but this may not apply to your situation. You need to enlist the help-I be there's thousands of folks into what you're contemplating, right in your area-and see what works where you live. But generally, tilling up the soil is neither necessary nor desirable. Too much soil loss. We even use a no-till drill for most of our seeding here in Wisconsin. Working up the soil = erosion and new weed seeds sprouting. ps.......oh, and please don't think you have to remove the rocks. They are absolutely a part of the scene there, and any plants that naturalize in your planting should be types adapted to rocky situations. Otherwise, you're starting your "natural" garden right off the bat with the biggest fight against nature you've ever seen in y our life! Not that you said you were moving rocks out of the way. Just saying.....I had some "prairie" planted around a wildlife scrape one time, by a very good native restoration landscape firm. Soil is stoney where this occurred. So there was this company thinking they had to rake or somehow remove all of these stones. I said why? They are part of what's here.....not foreign to the site. Anyway, that one surprised me. Seemed out of keeping with the job.

Thanks everyone! I must say about digging a hole and putting something in it isn’t as bad as you think (imo) the biggest tomato plant I ever grew was from digging a hole haha. I didn’t have room in my raised beds back then and had an extra plant. While the ones in the raised beds did good the one just dropped in a hole and pine needles thrown around it made amazing size tomato’s. I have to get this cabbage in ground now and it’s rained to much to get garden ready so instead of just throwing them out after all the work of growing them, any thing is better than leaving in cups