Ideally you should let the soil surface dry completely before you water it again. If Mother Nature keeps it wet, then don't water. Watch the grass and let it tell you when to water. It will wilt or change to a darkish green. Then water immediately. When you do water, water a full inch all at one time. Measure an inch using empty cat food or tuna cans placed around the yard. You can time how long it takes to get an inch and just run the sprinklers for that length of time. Every system is different. Mine takes 8 hours while my neighbor's takes 20 minutes. You have to measure your own. If the rain comes judiciously, you might not water for months. Everyone gets that same story about topsoil. I used to work for a grading company. They keep what they can. If you were on hills, they push the soil around to flatten it and decide whether to bring more in or remove some. But you are correct in assuming it is probably not the top most soil that was ever there. Still you can work with it. If you want to really tune up your soil, get a soil test from Logan Labs in Ohio. If you are not going to spend $20 for that, then don't bother. Any soil test will tell you you need to fertilize. I believe the best thing you can do for your soil is to fertilize organically. The organic fertilizer I like best for the past couple of years is alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). The reason I like it best is the cost of corn went sky high a couple years ago. Before that I used corn meal. The application rate for grain based fertilizers is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can use them as often as you like and can afford to improve your soil as quickly as you can. Weekly is fine if you choose to do that. Monthly works better for me. Or you might do it weekly for a few weeks to jump start it and then go to monthly for the rest of the season. Can you describe what is wrong with your soil? You might do a jar test to see if you really have clay. There are certain salts in soils that can make them act like clay, but if you try to use the typical clay loosening solutions, you'd be doing the exact wrong thing. Put a cup of clay into a mayo jar and measure the height along the side with a ruler. Then fill it with water and 1 drop of liquid soap, and shake it up. Immediately measure how much material settles to the bottom of the jar. Write that number down. Check again in 2 minutes, 2 hours, and 2 days. If, at the end of 2 days, you can see through the water on top of the soil in the jar, then you don't have clay. The first stuff to fall out is rocks, gravel, and sand. Next is silt. Clay never comes out of suspension and clouds up the water until the water dries. Stuff floating on top is organic matter like twigs. The important organic matter is microscopic, so you'll never see it.

I don't honestly know exactly what I want to do in the yard - I am new to the whole owning a home thing. I have an active dog that really enjoys running around the yard as it is, but I don't enjoy going out there because I sink up to my ankles in bog. I want to replace the upper deck and build another deck underneath it to make a workshop/storage space; I would like to build an enclosure for the cats that leads from the house out into the garden so they can get fresh air and exercise without being in danger; I want to build a small chicken coop/shed so I can keep a couple dozen quail and a couple chickens (max chickens is 4). I just want it to be a private area where I can do my own thing. I am not a huge gardener per se, but I enjoy plants and nature and would like to make the yard usable and look nice. The property is on a slight decline sloping away from the back of the house. and the street is also on a hill - one neighbor is higher than me, the other lower. The higher neighbor has put multiple levels in his yard with landscape ties and filled it all in with crush. The other neighbor has a slightly more dry yard than mine, but then their yard has been taken care of. The person who owned this house before me was a very elderly man who did not do any yardwork anymore. A lot of people on my street have converted their yards to crush and/or used landscape ties to make different levels since the neighbirhood is on a hill. Perhaps I should do a tour of my yard and put it on Youtube!

Sweet Autumn Clematis is an invasive vine--seeds all over the place here.

What ground covers are good on a swampy hill? Have to be low enough to not hide lilies. New England Natives preferred. I was wondering if Lily-of-the-Valley, cranberry or cinnamon ferns make sense.