DCHALL recommends that you use a soaker hose at very low flow rate and leave it there for a week or two... Since you just moved there last year... It will take several years to undo all the damages they did to the soil. I don't know where you live but I suggest you try out Jobee's organic fertilizer. it has Biozome (archea type) and assorted of microorganisms. It would be similar to spreading compost but at much lower price. Use that first, water them in and then use DCHALL's method.

It can be found at Lowe's. Vigoro's brand at Home Depot is exactly the same.

Spreading compost on the worst area might help. Do all that and you will eventually see improvement in the soil biology.

Are you sure there isn't a large rock underneath there?

I've had to haul out tons of it out of my lawn to be able to plant anything.

Although the soil is quite rocky in places that's not the problem. The particularly hard areas are quite large. One whole side of the house. I've probed with the screwdriver in dozens of places.

Everywhere the grass is lush the screw driver sinks in a full 6 inches or more right up the the handle without too much effort. The thin poor looking aras are all so hard its impossible to get a screw driver to penetrate more than a half inch or so. I dug one spot up as I said because I had the same thought. That it might be rocky. After watering for two hours and jumping up and down on a shovel I was able to dig up a small peach about the size of a paper plate. The soil was bone dry and rock hard red clay. It was really almost a brick. No rock in that spot though.

Interestingly. When I subsequently watered that spot again and water was able to penetrate the brittle hard dry chunk I pulled up softened up nicely.

I'm gonna go forward with areator and another shampoo treatment before my next application of fertilizer and see if getting a little penetration into that hard soil does the trick. For less than a hundred bucks its worth a shot. Certainly more cost effective than top dressing with a good compost. That will have to wait till next year.

I've tried the soap and it didn't work for me. You have compact soil, not hydrophobic soil. There is one tried and true method for fixing this. Go to your local home depot and rent their core aeration machine for like $50-$75 (1/2 day) and punch as many holes as you can in the soil. Leave the core on the lawn. While your soil is exposed, it is a perfect time to put down fertilizer and top dress compost. Both of which will conveniently fell into the core holes, speeding up the process of improving your soil.

This is best done in the fall, otherwise you will be exposed to weed seed being pushing into your soil and growing at the surface where the core was punched.

Home Depot Core Aerator Rental.

**Also, I would be shocked if this machine doesn't blast through your soil. These things are very powerful. There are two 50lbs weights that slide into sleeves on the side for added downward pressure.

This post was edited by SC77 on Fri, Jun 20, 14 at 12:50

New Construction? Bermuda? Aeration?
I know squat about Bermuda except that it should be cut low and a level lawn helps.
You've never mentioned how large your lawn is, but some advice on aeration: The day before aerating, water the lawn. Best results if you break the watering up into 2-3 applications between late afternoon (suppertime) and late evening. This softens the soil and allows for easier tine penetration. A standard rental aerator will make just under 4 holes per square foot with each pass. You should shoot for at least 10+ holes per square foot. This is backbreaking work and your lawn will look a mess. Aeration exposes the roots, so you are going to need to apply extra water regularly to reduce turf stress.
As long as you are already breaking your back and making a mess, consider topdressing (compost or better yet, a mixture of sand and peat moss) to take advantage of the core holes. With sand, you can level the lawn and kill two birds with one stone.
If you do topdress with sand, consider removing the cores first as you don't need the clay and you don't want to raise the level of your lawn more than necessary.

Compost is pretty expensive. I would spread Jobee's organic fertilizer to introduce microorganisms after core aerating so they can get to root zone. It certainly is a lot cheaper option.

This is great info guys. Hopefully the aerator is up to the task. Maybe that in combination with the organic fertilizer this time will get me back on track.

Hopefully I don't create a weed problem but I I've already successfully battles the weeds this spring and I'm almost completely weed free. I can do it again if I have.

I really think the conditions in the lawn will evolve and improve on their own over time if I maintain it well but I really need to let the roots stretch their legs and get well established before I'll make much progress.

I can see you're going to do the core aeration, so here is some more advice.

Since you have it you may as well use the heck out of it. The bermuda will survive no matter what, so drive that thing up and back, across and back, diagonal and back, and then the other diagonal and back. You need all the holes you can get.

When you're finished, whether you use compost or not, then spray again with shampoo at a higher dose (6-10 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Then water it until you think you're going to fill in all the holes (you won't). But if you do fill the holes and it seems like it won't drain, then you have a bigger problem.

I don't think your soil is compacted. Sure the heavy landscaping equipment drove over it but they are designed for landscaping. If you tried to compact the soil with that equipment it would be hard. You would have to start with soil that was completely saturated and drive over it until you sunk in and pushed all the air out of the soil. I'm sure that didn't happen. Most contractors will leave the job site at the first sign of sprinkles.

If that still doesn't work, then Lou has alluded to another approach I have used successfully using a soaker hose. It is not what you might think, but it worked every time I tried it. I gave up on that approach once I learned about shampoo, but I certainly remember it.

Shampoo does not work in one treatment, or even two. Your lawn/soil did not get in this situation in one or two weeks, and won't get out of it in one or two weeks. There are no instant solutions.

Mine worked in 2 apps, but then again, it has been organic for 12 years and I was quick to treat when it was drying out.