Hi dchall_san_antonio, thanks for the follow-up post. You are spot on with regards to the unevenness of sod. I did my front yard last season and was instantly dissatisfied with the results with regard to the undulations. So I had to spend more time and more effort to get a result that I wanted from the outset. Hence my obsession was born with having a perfectly level yard. I searched the internet determined to get a better result. I read about sprigging, but found almost zero info on how the regular Joe could do it at home. I took bits of info from golf green construction, sport fields, bowling greens and then applied this to what would work at home for me using everyday tools and non-specialized products. The cost was also significantly less than buying sod for the entire project which is quite expensive in Australia (around A$9.00m2) I will try by best to answer the questions that you have put forth; My patio area faces roughly east, so the sun passes directly over the yard in summer. In winter it moves to the north (the left hand side looking from patio). Long shadows do cast to the south, however more so in winter as the sun is lower in sky. I cultivated the soil using a rotary hoe or a gas powered tiller to till the soil to a depth of around 6 inches. I then made a contraption of 4 x 6 foot pieces of timber set parallel with 4 x braces running perpendicular to the long pieces. I attached a rope to this and then spent the next few days dragging this contraption back and forth, round and round, up and down until it was as level as I could make it. I let it settle for about 2 weeks, then spent another weekend with my new wooden friend. I got the idea from this video; Leveling yard After this I brought in around 2 cubic meters of builders sand for final grade. I built a smaller version of the wood , this time using aluminum and a handle that you use like a rake to move the soil around. I then watered this to the point of runoff and let it dry. I used the lawn level again to level out any minor undulations and watered it again. Finally I used a long piece of timber to check for grade and undulations. At this point I was satisfied. The high tech tools used to cut up the sod was a pair of garden shears and a pair of HD sissors! No wonder my hands were dead after about 6 hours. I put the cut sprigs into a big container of water for about an hour, then put them in a old wet sheet in the shade until I was ready to broadcast them. I made sure I had enough to cover one irrigation zone before I spread them such that i could irrigate immediately after planting. Once I realised that this method was not going to work I borrowed a leaf shredder and put smaller pieces of sod through the hopper. At first I was concerned that I cut them too small and they would not root, but they did take, however at a slower rate than compared with the larger pieces. I did this in October, which is mid-spring here. Funnily enough we had a really mild spring which didn't really help with the grow-in. When temps got above 25C you could literally watch it grow! This is not common practise for establishing home lawns in Australia. Some turf suppliers do offer what they call 'shredded turf' but these companies are not in my state. The methods these companies advocate could not be translated the method I used. Next time I would try and actually source the sprigs, rather than cutting up sod. It is so time consuming and very messy. Other than that I am really happy with how it has come up. I said to my wifey that if I ever plant another lawn I will be stolonizing it. The real reason I wanted to spend the time doing this post is purely for the fact that I have learned so much from this forum (even as a lurker) and I wanted to take the time and give something back to other forum members who have taken the time with their experiences. In particular David's thread which I used to level my front yard. Here are some pics of that project if anyone is interested; Front This is disc roller below; PS I will work on my photography skills This post was edited by SimonR on Mon, Jan 27, 14 at 0:35

Hey there, sjerin. I was just stopping by to provide an update on the matter of composting bermuda. Yep! When I planted wheat, the bermuda in the soil went bye bye. Of course, I did attempt to remove as much bermuda grass and root prior to planting the wheat, but those smaller roots that make it so persistent were in there. That was last spring. I now have alfalfa planted in that plot. Zero bermuda! Also, once wheat is firmly rooted it kicks out bindweed,too. However, once removed the bind weed returned. It really likes the alfalfa, too. Darn it. Update: I turned that compost pile, today. When I assembled the pile in the usual layered fashion the ratio of bermuda to all others was very small. I wanted to insure the bermuda didn't take over when the compost cooled. It worked. It took about two weeks to include all the bermuda grass and roots because of the ratio. And I had a lot of it. But when I turned it today there was much that was not yet composted. But zero bermuda was evident. Yay! It can be done.

I got rid of bermuda grass (and bindweed) in the paths around my garden plots at the community garden by pulling any stolons and rhizomes I could see, then putting down cardboard or newspaper and 6-8 inches of mulch. It went from being a constant lush nuisance to a once-in-awhile easy-to-pull straggler within one season. Also, since surrounding gardeners still allow it in their garden beds, the roots are fed and watered regularly. It has not reappeared in my garden beds. Other people who have mulched without the cardboard and prepulling have had it reappear, but (if they bothered to pull it) it's easier to pull when it comes up through thick mulch. Even in the paths near my garden where the gardeners do not mulch, I've found it satisfying to dig up the long stolons and rhizomes occasionally, and over time their number has decreased. I think the bg was such a huge problem because you started out by tilling. That's how bg is planted!! The stolons and rhizomes are cut up into little pieces, then scattered. Each one develops into a new plant. One of the people at the community garden digs and sifts the soil (half-inch mesh) down to about a foot when starting a new garden. He removes rocks as well as bg rhizomes that way. I would not use poison on food-growing soil.

Tilling would have been the wrong thing to do, especially for bermuda, so don't hate on your installer. He did it right. Still the surface is not level. You can deal with that in December or wait until next June. The grass either needs to be completely dormant or growing like crazy. Your soil is not likely to be compacted. You can drive bulldozers over it all day long and it will not compact...unless the soil is saturated with water first. If the soil was saturated and then mechanically compressed, that would cause the particles of soil to squeeze the air out and that is the definition of compacted soil. Bricks are made of compacted clay. Adobe is made of compacted silt and sand. Almost no yards are truly compacted. However, many (MANY) yards are hard from a lack of adequate biology. New yards are especially prone to this because they don't get watered, fertilized with organics, and don't have a history of grass growing in them. Here's how to fix yours fast. ...and when I say fast, I mean in 3 weeks. Spray it with shampoo. Shampoo is a surfactant that will allow moisture to penetrate much deeper into the soil. When that happens the microbes in the soil have a more hospitable environment (cooler and moister) in which to thrive. It is the microbes that soften the soil for you. The shampoo application rate is 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. If you have 3,000 square feet, put 9 ounces into a hose end sprayer, fill it with water, and try to spray it evenly until the sprayer bottle is empty. You can repeat this as often as you want to, but wait for 3 weeks before you decide to repeat. Before you spray it test the soil by pushing a screw driver into it. Do that before you water and after. Then spray the yard and apply a full 1/2 to 1 inch of water all at one time. You'll have to time how long to leave the sprinkler on yourself. Do that by placing cat food or tuna cans around the yard and time how long it takes to fill them. I can tell by looking at your (dry) yard that 25 minutes is not nearly long enough. Mine takes 8 hours with turbo oscillator sprinklers on a 3/4-inch hose. That time to water 1 inch is the time you should reset your sprinklers for. Once you know that number, reset the timer and set it to water only one day per week. Bermuda in Fresno should be able to handle one day a week watering easily. I just visited a St Augustine lawn in Phoenix that only gets water once a week, so you can do it with bermuda. When the soil is right it will be very soft when moist and very firm when dry. The shampoo treatment is a replacement for aerating. You won't have to aerate ever again. Use a clear shampoo like baby shampoo. Don't use one with conditioners in it. Cheapo shampoo is fine. Generally you are correct to use the highest nitrogen number you can get easily with zeros for the other numbers. You might want to spend $25 for a soil test at Logan Labs to see if you need P or K in your fertilizer. If you do that, post your results here on this forum. Morpheuspa will read it for you and tell you how much of anything you need to apply, when to apply, and where to buy it. In addition to monthly feeding with high N, I would urge you to add at least one app per year of any organic fertilizer. The organic fertilizers feed the soil microbes so that they can help you take care of the grass. For example they keep the soil from getting hard. They also feed the grass, and there are other benefits. You can apply organics at the same time you use chemical ferts, or any other day of the year. Have you tried mowing down to 1/2-inch and letting it come back up to 3/4? Do you actually hit the ground when you mow lower than 1 inch or does it just scalp off all the green and leave brown stems? Brown stems are normal until you get it down to the 1/2-inch range. If you mow it 3x per week at 1/2-inch it will start to grow horizontally like you see on putting greens at the golf course. That's often the objective for serious bermuda growers.