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Severly Un-Even Lawn

16 years ago

My wife and I purchased a house back in November that sits on .25 acres. We live in a extremely raining neighborhood, outside of Seattle.

The backyard is in pretty horrible shape. The grass itself is fine, but the terrain has an extreme amount of divots in it. If you were to walk across the lawn, you would have a good chance of rolling your ankle. Also, there is a significant slope to the back yard, I assume it originally helped pull the rain away from our house.

We have made this a priority to fix. Ideally, the end result that I am looking for is to have a blank canvas that I can then plant grass, do some brick work, put in a fire pit, etc, etc, so I am looking for some thoughts and how I can get the yard to that point.

My initial thoughts were to kill off the current lawn and let it dry up, then rent a bob-cat and use it to level out the divots. Then roto-till the lawn. As you can tell, I have no idea where to start, so any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

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Comments (6)

texas_weed
16 years ago
Forget the bobcat and roto-tiller. When it is time just hire a contractor to come in with a tractor and box blade and regrade the area. Will take him an hour or two, and when finnished, you are ready to go.
beaujross
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks for the info.

My father inlaw over the weekend said we should think about just adding some top soil to the yard to fill in the divots, then re-seed on top of that. It didn't seem like it would work, but who knows.
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sdfd18
16 years ago
Always doubting the father in law. He's right! Well depending on the type of grass you have. If you have a fescue or "Long Blade" grass, topdressing won't work as well as it would with a "short blade" grass like Bermuda. The key is to add topsoil and sand mixture slowly and evenly. Be patient and let the established grass do it's thing. Tearing up the established grass and blading the area is like saying you are going to remove your car door just because a shopping cart put a small ding in the door. It makes no sense!!!!!! Be patient and have fun trying to get it as level as you want it. It's a labor of love!
philes21
16 years ago
I'd like to suggest core-aerating. Rent one of the hollow-core aerators, and aerate the lawn. Leave the cores on the lawn, and in fact, hit the high spots with an upside down garden rake, and knock the cores down into the low spots. Your high spots just got a little shorter, and your low spots just got a little taller. And your lawn will love it.
beaujross
Original Author
16 years ago
Any other thoughts on how to resolve this?

based on what I've read:

I'm going to cut the grass as short as possible with my self propelled mower, and perhaps use a powered reel mower to sheer the grass.

I'm going to have a truck load of soil dropped in my backyard and manually spread it around using a long board and a friend to help push the dirt around.

After the dirt is somewhat level ill reseed the lawn and water.

Am I missing anything?
billhill
16 years ago
Kill all the old grass with round-up. That way you will not have crappy grass coming up in your new lawn. Research this forum and others on proper lawn renovation technique. Choose the best seed you can find for your growing conditions. Good luck.

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