Bindweed is notoriously difficult to combat. The seeds remain viable for decades, and the roots spread so much that bindweed that you see coming up in your lawn may be an offshoot from a plant quite a distance away. So even pulling it all out won't get rid of all of it. If you're following an organic approach, your two choices are hand pulling and bindweed mites. Bindweed mites are not available everywhere, but they're small mites that eat only bindweed, so they kill teh bindweed without affecting anything else. If you're not opposed to using chemical weedkillers, your best approach will probably be to use diluted glysophate in the fall. The reason for diluting it is that if you use it full strength it will kill the top growth and leave the roots alone. If you dilute it, the plant will die slowly and bring the poison into its root system. This is more effective in the fall because that is when the plant is storing food for the winter in its roots. The approach I read was to take a jar and dilute the glysophate to 1/3 or 1/4 strength. Partially bury the jar so it doesn't spill and kill the surrounding plants. stick part of the bindweed plant into the jar and leave it there. One word of warning. Don't try to kill it by tilling. If you till it, you create lots and lots of little roots, each of which can grow into a new plant.

Thanks again for your advice on this. Just a quick follow-up to note for those who asked I posted my pics of my landscaping project over in the landscape design forum today. The thread link is below. Warning... lots of pics... and some on this forum may cringe at the amount of lawn that I pulled out for a patio and flowerbeds. ;) Here is a link that might be useful: Landscape Thread + Pics -- CLICK HERE

Where do you live? Zones are all over the place where there are different weather patterns and soil types. Watering should be based on the air temperature. There are many factors which go into the watering frequency, but if you go by air temp, you will be close enough to be successful. When you water it works best if you simulate a rainstorm of 1 inch all at one time. Don't split it into 1/2-inch over two days. You want the water to penetrate deep to the cooler levels of soil way down there. That helps to cool the soil and slows evaporation. It also give the roots reason to grow deep where there are untapped nutrients. A good starting point for frequency is this: When temps are in the 90s water once per week. With temps in the 80s water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s water once every 3 weeks. With temps lower than 70, water once a month. And always water the full inch. Measure an inch with your sprinklers by placing several cat food or tuna cans in the yard. Time how long it takes to fill all the cans. That will be your watering time from now on. My watering time with my oscillator sprinkler, hoses, and water pressure is 8 hours. If you have high flow in-ground system, you might get away with 20 minutes. In other words, you have to do this timing testing yourself. Then if you live near the coast where there is fog every morning, consider backing off on the frequency. If you get a good rainstorm, then wait for the grass to dry out and tell you to start watering again. If you have a hot spell with low humidity for a week or so, then water more frequently but, for example, if it went from 100 degrees to 115 and dry, I would change from every 7 days to every 5 days. Here is a little motivation for deep and infrequent watering. Morpheuspa, one of the visitors here, posted this picture of his lawn several years ago. The picture was taken in July. All the lawns are Kentucky bluegrass. His green lawn is watered deep and infrequent. The rest are watered daily.

Where do you live? What kind of grass do you have? - Dethatch No. Thatch, if you have it, is the least of your problems. - Cut the grass short Oh heck no. Always mow at the mower's highest setting or nearby. - Scarify Scarify is something you do to seeds that need to be roughened up. What does it mean in your context? - Aerate Probably not. Wait until you have the major issues resolved. - for the muddy areas, apply triple mix soil to flatten and level the lawn Not yet. Assuming you have low spots, you need to address those. Fixing those should get rid of the muddy parts. - overseed / over the mud spots, I will apply more seed and Wait for seeding (preferably until September), but until you have the bumps and dips sorted out. - put triple mix soil on top of seed No. You probably already have too much soil in the yard. Almost nobody is short of soil. There are tons of people who put 1/4-inch of topsoil on the yard EVERY year. Well, in 4 years that's an inch of soil you don't need. - Rake and spread the soil around NO! No more soil. - add water NO! You already have a water problem. I live in Texas and have not watered my lawn yet this year. Well, a little on the southern bank, but then it rained, of course. The big thing is to identify any drainage issues. Water should drain away from all the buildings and out to the curb or a ditch somewhere. If you have low spots anywhere, or if you have soil higher than the concrete walkways or driveways, then you have too much soil already. Scraping it up and hauling it away is a huge deal that I've rarely seen done, but that solves so many issues. Fixing the drainage will NEVER involve tilling the soil. It might involve scraping surface soil away to form a swale or ditch, but rototilling is never in the solution to drainage. Rolling is similarly useless in profiling the surface. It looks like your yard is bumpy mostly from lumps of grass interspersed with dead spots. I would not jump to any conclusions about the soil being bumpy until you get an even stand of grass.