If you're looking to establish a nice turf along the driveway, you'll want a minimum of 4 inches of a good loamy topsoil (whatever is recommended in your area) to seed, 6 inches is better. Under that, you can pretty much use whatever clean fill you have (within reason...no ground concrete or asphalt). While the fill should be leveled (more or less) and raked, and maybe compacted some, the topsoil really shouldn't be compacted with more than an empty lawn roller, as too much compaction can prevent good root growth.

The only preemergent you can use when seeding is Tupersan (siduron). It will prevent crabgrass, and a few other weeds, but won't affect your turf seed, or a lot of other weeds you don't want. Scott's makes a starter soil with Tupersan in it, but I don't think they make a starter fertilizer with Tupersan. Normally you buy it seperately. Their regular weed and feed contains Halts (Pendamethalin), which you don't want to use when seeding. Tupersan has a short duration, 4-6 weeks, so you will have to make multiple applications if you decide to use Tupersan. If you sod a small area like that it will probably not match the rest of the yard very well unless the sod contains the same cultivars as the rest of the lawn.

Believe it or not, there are afew Siberians in that area. If you look to the right of the very first picture you will see one blooming behind the daylilies and in front of the rock wall. I only have about 6 different Siberians in this garden area. The rest are in other areas of the garden. I had planted some out front last year, but this year added to it and planted even more. Its just that the so called clumps are so small (I am lucky if they are four fans) that they are difficult to notice.

Thanks for the advice. It has been since last September that the work has been done. What is a drag? Is this a special tool? By "sand", I am assuming you mean top soil? Unfortunately it is winter here in Long Island, NY, so I am not mowing currently, and grass is not growing. Should I wait until fall to minimize the potential growing of weeds in new topsoil that I am sifting in? It seems that today "everyone" claims to be a professional. Real good workers are hard to come by. I have great respect for workers and always treat them well when they work at my house, but I'll tell you, anything I don't do myself, I wind up being disappointed, always. I do have general knowledge of most of the building trades, and I see that most people want to come into your home and do things the quick and easy way, make their money, and leave, as opposed to doing things the way you would do at your own house, maybe take some more time, and do a better job. I don't mind paying extra for the correct job, cant seem to find people willing to do so though. - When we did our kitchen, the cabinets had to be installed 3 times by 3 separate contractors. - When we got our floors done, we had removed all moldings but we installed new interior doors. When they stained the floor, they did not tape around the brand new door jambs and you can see dark floor stain around all of them. A little paint will do the trick which I haven't got around to yet, but these are things that get me. Thank god we were installing new molding after, I could just imagine. - We spent about 8k plus to have new window wells and basement stairway installed. These guys absolutely sucked. Did not use the proper cement molds to support weight of the pour. Everything collapsed on them while pouring. They managed to get through it, but it does not look 100% till this day. - The driveway sealer guy was a joke. Had his daughter working with him, arguing with her as he pulled up, poor girl. He missed spots, was sloppy, and had an attitude as I am telling him to fix because I saw he was ready to leave. Then I had to call him 5 minutes after he left to come back and fix more spots he missed. I am not a picky person and a lot of times I swallow things assuming perfection is limited, but I started to open my mouth to people. All the years I had worked at peoples houses when I was in business, I had realized something that homeowners rarely do when people work on their house,. Get an inspection. I am not talking about an inspector who is hired by guy that is working on your house(this inspector passes all his lousy work), I am talking about hiring an independent inspector for the type of trade at hand. And hold half the pay until the inspection passes. Of course this should be discussed before work begins. Watch how many contractors run away, especially the fact that the inspector will ask for their license #. That's my new rule, I am done with shoddy contractors. The only people I can say I was 100% satisfied with, was the guy that finally installed the kitchen cabinets correctly, and the guy that graded the lawn. The guy that graded the lawn did a fantastic job with the 2 to 3 inches of top soil, and all the fill that was brought in and layed underneath 1000+ yards. But again, here come the sprinkler guys hacking everything lol. It's not the worse thing, the grass turned out great, but I feel and see some low spots.