Thanks for the quick reply. They applied a Fescue seed, and it was definitely done too late. We both knew that and knew that a second seeding in the fall would be necessary, but I still don't think they prepped the soil correctly.

So no on the disking and no to the tilling. What about core aerating? If I go with a warm season grass, it will be next year before it's time to sow, so if I aerated 4-5 times before then, would this be beneficial?

I have no great love or hate of core aeration and, in this case, if you wished to do it I wouldn't particularly object. It'll certainly help get the weed seeds to germinate before you plant next year.

Lightening the soil? Not really, no. Soil structure is more chemically dependent than anything else, although bare soils can compress a bit.

I'm going to go ahead and say this even though you might be offended: Almost every aspect of what you have done, how you have interpreted the results, your assumptions about the future - everything...has elements of being a very bad idea. I'm not sure where you got your lawn knowledge, but it's out of kilter. Having said that, prior to GardenWeb (2002 for me) my lawn knowledge was based on what I thought was considerable experience applying what I was taught in my elective college classes. When I came here and found out how the folks really do it, I realized I had to unlearn everything I thought I knew about lawn care. You're right there where I was.

Lawn care is much easier than you are making it. It is easy to do right, and it is easy to do wrong. Here's what should have happened from the start. You might have been able to grow grass under your oak trees if you had the right type of grass. Shadow Turf is a variety of zoysia that grows in fairly deep shade. There are some fescues that can work in the shade, too. St Augustine might have worked but north of Atlanta I'm not so sure. So now that the trees are out, what should have happened is a contractor with a tractor (not a bobcat) and a box blade with ripper blades should have come through and ripped out all the tree trunks and roots. Once those were out they would have driven over the soil to repack it and used the box part of the blade to surface the soil. At that point it would have been ready for seed. Then the seed goes down and the surface gets rolled with a rented, water fillable, roller. The purpose of the roller is to ensure good seed contact with the soil. Then you start watering to get the seed to germinate. No other preparation would be needed. Even if all they did was saw down the trees and leave stumps, you would not need to do anything as long as you start with bare soil. Seed, roll, water. Simple once you know. Of course your timing has to be right. Yours was not seeded late, it was seeded too early. Fall is by FAR AND AWAY the best time to seed northern type grasses. Winter is better than spring. Spring is only slightly better than the dead of summer. In a sense it was late, but it was 9 months late.

Aeration is commonly used to soften hard soil. Thanks to the ingenuity of the amateur lawn growers around the Internet, a better solution is at hand. The professional sports greens keepers have used surfactants like Cascade Plus (not the dish soap) to soften hard soil. Some clever home owners "discovered" that ordinary shampoo works. If you think your soil is hard or otherwise distressed, apply shampoo from a hose end sprayer at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. So that would be 60 ounces of shampoo for you. Follow the application with 1/2 to 1 inch of water and let that work for 2 weeks. If it still seems harder than you would like, reapply. It works in many ways but it just works. The shampoo should be clear and not cloudy with conditioners. I like baby shampoo. Morpheuspa like apple scented something or another. So there! I've saved you $250 for an aerator tool. Morph saved you another couple hundred for the rototiller attachment. You'll never need that. What you might use is a drag mat. You could gang them up and use that for surfacing an unlevel surface. You WILL have that for the next 3 years based on what you've already done. But you really don't need to do anything until it stops settling in 3 years. You might want a 25-gallon ag sprayer attachment for the lawn tractor. That would make it easier to apply shampoo. You might also want a rotary type of broadcast fertilizer distributor (pull behind). You can put the entire load of fertilizer in the big hopper and drag it around.

Full sun does not mean southern grass. They do get full sun in the north, too. You're in the zone where you can do either southern or northern, but I would lean toward northern full sun like Kentucky bluegrass. If you have a preference let us know and we can get more specific. Would you consider a very low maintenance mix of prairie grasses? They can look just like a lawn but hardly need any care.

Thinking ahead to when you have a mature lawn, all you have to do is water, mow, and fertilize. Weed control will be practically automatic if you're doing the water/mow/fertilizer right. Insects and disease should not be a problem, but sometimes Mother Nature intervenes to make sure all her favorite diseases and plagues are still alive.

Watering properly will be key. The mantra is deep and infrequent. Deep means a full inch all at one time. You'll have to measure the output of your hoses to see how long it takes to apply a full inch. I prefer to use turbo oscillator sprinklers because they apply a perfectly uniform pattern of water. I've used everything, twice, and settled on the turbo oscillators. They take forever to apply an inch of water. Mine takes 8 hours, but it's extremely even. Infrequent means once a week in the heat of summer. Once every 2 weeks when the temps cool to the 80s. Once every 3 weeks with temps in the 70s, and once a month the rest of the year. If you go with prairie grasses you can add a week to all of those times.

Most grasses should be mowed once a week. Bermuda, if you want it to look good, should be mowed 2x to 3x per week.

Fertilizer should go down in late spring (Memorial Day), early fall (Labor Day), and late fall (roughly Thanksgiving).

So once you get the lawn up and growing, it should be fairly easy to keep up. You're now back at the planning stage for starting over in a few weeks. Ask a lot of questions here because your window of opportunity is quickly approaching and will close about a month later.

"I'm going to go ahead and say this even though you might be offended"
no offence taken. This is my first home, even growing up I was always in charge of the pool, brother did the yard.

"Here's what should have happened from the start....."..."what should have happened...."
I think it's safe to say what should have happened didn't, but that was also almost 3 months ago. What I'm facing now is a yard that is 60% green( (and of that 90% weeds, 10% immature fescue grass that never grew enough to make it through the summer), and 40% bare dirt.

"What you might use is a drag mat." AKA Harrow Rake? The lawn is actually semi-level. there is a good slope on one side, but no real valleys or holes in the yard.

"If you have a preference let us know and we can get more specific." not so much a preference, just thought that was what would be best. Full sun, no irrigation system, and low(er) maintenance (I've always hears bermuda was best at bouncing back/dealing with lack of water. I was looking at something like zoysia, but I'm not sure if I can seed that successfully or not. I figured I've missed my opportunity for Bermuda/warm season grass by now. Maybe a seasonal rye grass or something else through this year and then put my seed out next summer?

"Would you consider a very low maintenance mix of prairie grasses? They can look just like a lawn but hardly need any care." Low maintenance and looks half way decent? Sign me up. Still, sounds like a bad Used Car Salesman, what's the catch? Why isn't everyone using prairie seed? I'm not looking to make it on the cover of home and garden or anything, but I need the house sell-able in a few years (especially if the wife doesn't stop popping out kids)

"So once you get the lawn up and growing". Whoa whoa, can't think too far ahead. How'd I go about getting there? First step is shampoo? Then the additives (depending on my soil test results)? Should I cover the whole yard in roundup, or try to throw seed in with the weeds and expect the grass to take over? When do I use the drag mat? Does all this need to be done in a months time, or can I shampoo and fertilize/lime now and spread seed next summer (IF I decide on a warm season grass) Would I have enough time to Shampoo, fertilize, lime and put out a cool season grass before it gets too cold?

And sorry but I still can't wrap my head around this. Just normal baby shampoo? like Johnson and Johnson type? Dump (5) 12 oz bottles into a sprayer, fill with water, and don't stop until it's gone?

Thank you both for all the good information. I understand this isn't going to be a quick process. I see lots of houses when large acreage and no sprinkler system, so I know it's possible. Again, I'm definitely not looking for perfection. If my kids can play in the sprinklers and get more wet than muddy, I'll be happy.

>>And sorry but I still can't wrap my head around this. Just normal baby shampoo? like Johnson and Johnson type? Dump (5) 12 oz bottles into a sprayer, fill with water, and don't stop until it's gone?

Exactly. And yes, it's hard to wrap your head around because it just doesn't seem like it would work.

It works.

The baby shampoo is actually the third or fourth step out from perfect, but it still works beautifully. Personally, if I'm not making my own from scratch, I use Suave Apple scent because I like the way it smells. If making my own from scratch, I use a potassium-based soap gel made at home or, if lazy, a 5% solution of sodium lauryl sulfate. I'm usually lazy and mix the stuff by the gallon, it's cheap.

Two to four ounces per gallon acts as a soil loosener and also helps keep water in contact with the soil over longer periods of time. Which encourages fungi to move in and aerate it for you.

Sodium can tighten a soil, but the amounts we're adding are insignificant in terms of what's already in there. Some folks use ammonium-based surfactants for that reason, but I don't see any need to do so.

While technically temporary, that's temporary on soil scales, not human ones.

It can also fail, particularly if the soil is so far out of chemical balance that it simply can't open up (usually caused by a very, very extreme amount of sodium or magnesium in the soil and a severe deficit in the calcium). Hence the recommendation for a soil test--not much is going to help a collapsed soil until you correct it.

I separated this because otherwise I'd write a book.

>>Should I cover the whole yard in roundup, or try to throw seed in with the weeds and expect the grass to take over? When do I use the drag mat? Does all this need to be done in a months time, or can I shampoo and fertilize/lime now and spread seed next summer (IF I decide on a warm season grass) Would I have enough time to Shampoo, fertilize, lime and put out a cool season grass before it gets too cold?

Round Up, definitely. Never try to seed into weeds. I'll let David speak on the drag mat; I've never bothered.

If you want a cool season grass like fescue or rye, this would have to be done by the time the seed needs to go down--probably about a month in your area, could be a little longer. Which isn't going to happen, so most of the soil corrections would go once the new lawn is planted.

No worries there, I simply lower the amounts and make things gentle enough for a new lawn.

If you're going to put in a warm season grass, you have until early next summer.

Which one you use is up to you.

>>Why isn't everyone using prairie seed?

Because a lot of people find it unattractive. Your mileage will, of course, always vary and what I think is hideous you might absolutely love.

Yes, harrow rake.

The prairie grasses have very unattractive seed heads. Turf grasses have seed heads that either blend in with the grass or are not that ugly. However, if you mow them every few weeks, you don't get the seed heads.

Here's a picture of a prairie grass lawn in Salt Lake City. The only thing he did differently from what the farmers do is he seeded quite a big more densely.

That is a mix of wheatgrasses, blue grama, and strawberry clover. Clover seed is usually inoculated with a microbe that takes nitrogen out of the air and makes plant food. That's the reason for the clover. Strawberry clover looks much like Dutch white clover except the flowers are redish purple. They attract bees, so if anyone is allergic to bee stings, leave the clover out. When I say a mix of wheatgrasses, there are dozens of wheatgrass varieties. Which ones do best in your area will be for you to figure out. There are websites that can help you or your county ag extension service can help with that.

That looks plenty good to me, mowing every few weeks I can do no problem. Mowing once a week I could probably do most of the time, missing the occasional weekend every now and then. Mowing 2-3 times a week isn't going to happen, I have two kids and a third due in September.

So for a game plan:

1) Get soil testing done and amend the soil as needed

2)Shampoo the lawn

3) Mow the lawn short

4)Roundup the whole lawn

5) Sow seed (and starter fertilizer?)

6) Roll/Harrow Rake the seed into the soil (Preference here? Which one would be better? Do both?)

7)start watering frequently while the seed is germinating, then infrequently once established.

Does that look right? Other than actually planting the seeds is there a time-frame on when to start this process? I know the roundup will need a few weeks to dissipate before putting seed out. How long do I need to wait after amending and shampooing?

I would assume past this point maintenance will depend on the grass I choose. I'll reach out to my county ag extension for recommendations on that, but considering my lack of irrigation I'm leaning towards a bermuda/warm season, or a prairie blend.

Round Up is actually pretty seed-neutral. A few days is sufficient for it to dissipate enough to seed.

I confess I spot-treated with Round Up at the same time as I seeded. It went fine--Round Up really only works when applied to greenery, and seeds aren't there yet!

Shampoo can go right atop the seed if you want, and it might actually help a bit with initial water penetration. Regardless, it's completely seed and seedling neutral and something I use even on tiny seedlings of annuals to get rid of aphids if I'm having a problem with them.

Amendments vary, and we'll have to see your soil test and have an idea of the proper seeding date (I have no clue with those grasses, but suspect it's early next summer). Once we know what you need and when you'll be seeding, I'll design the plan to work around the seeding.

You have a step out of order.

>>1) Get soil testing done and amend the soil as needed

You can do this now or later. You will need the results to know if you should use starter fertilizer, though. Logan Labs tests come back in a few days, so sooner rather than later.

>>2)Shampoo the lawn

Again, any time either before or after the grass is in.

>>3) Mow the lawn short

If you are going to use RU, just leave it long. The RU is absorbed by the plant leaves and blades, so the more surface area you spray, the better the uptake. If you are going to kill the grass anyway, don't mow it.

>>4)Roundup the whole lawn

Do this and then start frequent watering every day for a week. This extra watering step will sprout all the weed seeds that might be waiting there to sprout along with your grass seed. Then spray the RU again a week later. When all the vegetation is dead, rake it up or run your harrow rake to collect all that dead stuff and level the surface. Rake and rake and rake with the harrow to knock the high spots down and transfer that loose soil to the low spots. You might need to put some weight on the harrow rake.

>>5) Sow seed (and starter fertilizer?)

Finally it's time to seed. Whether you use starter fertilizer will depend on your soil test results.

>>6) Roll/Harrow Rake the seed into the soil (Preference here? Which one would be better? Do both?)

Just roll it. The harrowing will be done earlier. Harrowing is to make a level surface. Rolling is to press the soil into the surface. The proper weight of the roller is heavy enough so that you can't see you foot prints in the soil behind the roller.

>>7)start watering frequently while the seed is germinating, then infrequently once established.

Yes. With that much area doing frequent watering is going to be a lot of work. You'll need lots of hoses and sprinklers. But when you are at this point, having killed all the weeds and all the weed seeds, all you should see coming up is YOUR grass seed.

I would suggest renovating only part of the area at a time. So maybe do 1/4 next spring, 1/4 the following spring, etc. (spring assuming you go with a warm season grass). First see how much area you can water with your hoses and sprinklers. You can try linking things together but if you're coming off a hose bib, there's only so much water pressure and you'll just have to see how much coverage you can get. You will need to water several times a day at first so it would work best if you can set the sprinklers up and not move them. If you're not home all the time, you will need a timer. However much area you can water, that's the area you can renovate at a time. For the area that can't be renovated, just keep it mowed, work on improving the soil. Mowed weeds can look okay until there is something better. Another possibility is dormant seeding. I don't know if that would work with a warm season grass. Sometimes folks who just can't water can get grass to grow that way.

Thanks everyone. I went out and got my soil samples today. With a metal trowel it was honestly difficult to break the dirt, and I'm not a small guy. I'll be sending these off today and hopefully have the results back next week. I have a feeling with how hard my soil is it's going to take more than one application of the Shampoo so either way I need to get started on that. I'd probably say getting anything down this fall isn't going to happen. Oh-well.

You never do know. Maybe the samples come back with nearly perfect chemistry (it happened once today, after all) or something that can be gently corrected over time.

The shampoo method really does loosen susceptible soils quite quickly. Since at this point you have bare dirt (and weeds), you can go higher on the amount you use--get the Value Size or Bulk Size and apply 4-6 oz per thousand square feet instead.

I will not tell you how many ounces per thousand per year I use in the flower garden. Let's just say "a lot." :-)

Thanks Morph, Given the little bump in shampoo, can you share your "recipe" for the sodium lauryl sulfate solution that you mix up? I'm looking at over $100 worth of Baby Shampoo, but I can get sodium lauryl sulfate powder for $15/pound on ebay. I know you said a 5% solution, but how much of that do you put down (per acre, per 1,000 sq/ft, ect..)? If that'll work better and is cheaper I'm all for using that.

Sure thing.

Now, a warning. One, you're doing this at your own risk; sodium lauryl sulfate is a significant irritant.

So two, you absolutely have to wear a mask and sealed (or back-vented) eye protection for this. I strongly advise gloves as well--prolonged contact with skin will cause severe dryness. Shower instantly after you make the stuff. And do this outside on a windstill day.

Ask me how I know. If you're getting the feeling that this is a touch more dangerous than simply using baby shampoo or cheap, clear adult shampoo, you're right, although not much. SLS and SLES (sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate) are both used in home soap making or home bath bombs/fizzies.

http://www.brambleberry.com/Sodium-Lauryl-Sulfate-P3562.aspx

In a one gallon container, mix 6.4 ounces of SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) with the rest water to the 1 gallon mark. Cap and shake well, then uncap to let the pressure off. Don't pour the water in from any height or you'll get massive frothing; running it down the side works best.

Use as if it were shampoo on the lawn only (this stuff is too strong to use as shampoo or a cleaner, although if you need to get oil stains off your garage floor, it'll work a treat with some scrubbing). So put 2 to 4 ounces in your hose-end sprayer and dilute with any convenient amount of water over 1,000 square feet.

So here's the math. 26 gallons of water (size of my 12v broadcast sprayer) weighs 217 lbs. at 5%, I would need 10.8 lbs of sodium lauryl sulfate, from your website with shipping that's about $70. From Amazon I can get a big pack of Baby Shampoo that will cover the yard for $100. Really not enough of a difference in price to worry about. Does the effectiveness of the SLS mixture outweigh the ease of use of the baby shampoo mixture?

at 5%, should I just put all 26 gallons down on my yard?

Stop. You're about to make a severe mistake.

Your lawn is 20,000 square feet (mine is 10,000 so we can just double my numbers).

In thousands of square feet, that's 20. You'd only apply 4 to 6 ounces (high rate) of the soap at any one time--let's call it 6.

6 * 20 = 120, or just under a gallon. You'd need a 1 gallon bulk jug of baby shampoo (check your local warehouse store or grocery's bulk section as I've seen them in both). Or you'd need 6.4 ounces of SLS mixed into 1 gallon of water.

That gallon of shampoo or gallon of mix (made up with 6.4 ounces of SLS) would cover your entire property with some left over.

The extra water comes from applying the stuff; dilution rates don't matter, but should be reasonably high, and some dilution helps wash it off the grass and into the soil immediately. Usually I set my sprayer at a setting of 15 (I have an odd sprayer), which means a pretty high dilution rate-- 1 pint per 15 gallons.

But of product, it's going to be 120 ounces per application, once a month maximum.

Okay I understand now. the 5% results in "shampoo", which is then diluted again in the tank, so I would be able to get just over 2 applications out of 1lb of SLS, Sounds like the plan to me.

I'll get that on order, I've already sent my soil test off as well so I'm waiting at this point. Thanks!

Exactly. You're essentially making shampoo, just stronger.

I just ordered again from Brambleberry (I went through five pounds of SLS in four years), and the new stuff isn't ground quite so fine. It's less likely to go into the air and cause major problems, but I still strongly advise wearing a mask.

Just a few particles in the windpipe are severely unpleasant and make your throat feel like you just stripped off the mucus membrane and burned it. Pretty much because that's what you just did.

They have an establishment recommendation, should i follow that? it recommends working the fertilizer into the top 4-6" of soil, guessing most people do this with a tiller/discs. How do you guys to it?

I"m still waiting on my SLS to arrive from Bramble Berry. What are my next steps?

This isn't a Logan or UMass test, so my read is very limited here.

>>They have an establishment recommendation, should i follow that?

No, because it's completely incorrect. They're recommending 1.5 pounds each of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium through the first 5" or so of soil profile. Nitrogen doesn't need to be incorporated (nor is nitrogen necessary at seeding time), you're lower on phosphorus than that, and you don't need potassium.

>>it recommends working the fertilizer into the top 4-6" of soil, guessing most people do this with a tiller/discs. How do you guys to it?

We never recommend tilling at all, given that it destroys the soil structure and results in an incredibly lumpy soil for the rest of time.

Anyway:

Organic matter: Not tested.

Exchange capacity: Not tested. This presents some challenges in determining what and when to add things. I winged it a bit and stayed on the conservative side.

Sulfur, sodium, most minor elements: Not tested.

pH 4.8: Always the symptom, never the disease, but in this case the symptom is equivalent to a temperature of 102°. Sub-5 pH is always a bad thing.

Phosphorus 5: Low, but I'm not familiar enough with this test to determine how low. Target looks like 30, I'm shooting for 20 to give a safety margin, and four apps of starter won't get you there (this is a slow process). We use common, off the shelf starter fertilizer to fix this, and you can simply purchase the cheapest.

Potassium 174: By the chart, this is right where it should be. No potassium required or desired.

Calcium 297: Very low. Because you don't need magnesium, we're going to use calcitic lime to avoid damaging the soil. Encap, Mag-I-Cal, or Pennington Fast Lime are acceptable for this task. Most cheap lime is not acceptable, won't impact your pH enough, will take ages to work in, and will overdo the magnesium levels. Recommendations below.

Magnesium 94: By the chart, none required or desired. Magnesium is right where it should be.

Zinc, Manganese 2, 99: This has to be the absolute strangest choice on testing minor elements from any lab I've ever seen. Neither is particularly demanded by grass, nor is grass particularly sensitive to an overage. Although I'd tend to call that manganese level anything but sufficient ("sky high" is more like it), we'll run with it.

Recommendations:

(These assume you plant a warm season grass early next summer)

September 1: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate.

September 15: Apply 9 pounds per thousand square feet of Encap, Mag-I-Cal, or Pennington Fast Lime

October 1: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate.

April 1, 2016: Apply 9 pounds per thousand square feet of Encap, Mag-I-Cal, or Pennington Fast Lime.

May 1, 2016: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate.

Planting Time: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate. This can go down with the grass seed if you wish, or beforehand.

Thanks for the time table. I'm assuming anything not listed (the shampoo for instance) doesn't have to be done at a specific time? I was going to do a few applications of Shampoo before next spring. Round Up should be done a few weeks before seeding (via the bottle's directions).

For the starter fertilizer, I"m seeing a few with different rates (Lesco is 18-24-12, Scotts is 24-25-4, Menards is 15-23-10). I know you said purchase the cheapest, but is there a trait/quality I should be aiming for?. I'm thinking the Scotts since it has the lowest Potassium number and my Potassium is already approaching high.

Shampoo, organics, and most of that stuff (like any treatments that may be required for fungal issues or bugs or whatnot) are wide open. They won't interact with anything and can go without any regard for where you are on the schedule.

All the starter fertilizers will target about 1 pound of P2O5 equivalent (about 0.45 pounds of elemental phosphorus) per thousand square feet per application and the differences aren't significant enough to worry about. There's no need to worry about a potassium level of 12, 10, or 4--although not required, a small amount of potassium won't hurt. I'm actually a fan of slightly high potassium levels for increased disease, insect, heat, and cold resistance.

Loaded up at home depot tonight, first application of fertilizer is this weekend.

A quick quest that came up while I was reading. I'm actually seeing some bermuda running around the yard now and the few spots it's pretty thick, but there's a mess ton of crab grass still about. weather for the next 15 days is rain probably 5 days, and 85-90*. Is the starter fertilizer this weekend going to make the crabgrass blow up, or am I far enough along in the season that everything that would sprout already has?