People in the South, with Bermuda, or St Augustine, or golf courses with bentgrass use sand. You and I (I'm in Michigan) use topsoil. Do NOT, REPEAT NOT, use 'topsoil mixed with peat', or 'premium topsoil' (which is about 20% peat). The garden center wants to sell you this. The landscaping company wants to deliver this. You don't want it. You want 'only topsoil, no peat'. The peat will rot (I'm sorry, I meant to say 'naturally decompose') and go away. And thus, the soil you so carefully filled, and levelled, will subside. Sink. Get lower. Not good. Stick with just topsoil. That having been said, where do we get this topsoil, for this complete renovation? If you have a few mounds, go ahead and roto-till the tops off them. Got a woods nearby, with higher elevation? Go ahead and roto till up some soil. Here's the clue with leveling topsoil: it helps if it's powdery dry. My favorite technique is to put it on a concrete driveway, in the sun, or on a plastic tarp, in the sun, and let it dry for a few days. Now it's dry, easily spread, and easily leveled. No such free dirt? Then have a load brought in, but put in on a driveway or tarp, so it can dry in the sun. It's far more easily worked, and more easily leveled. Leveling that dry topsoil with a rake? Not a prob. But make it just a tad high, as there will be a little (but a very little) settling. Can you roll it, with an empty roller? Great. That will give you a good 'final' height, without causing soil compaction. Let us know how it turns out.

If you want a deeper green than English laurel, Pacific wax myrtle may not be the right plant. Foliage is a bright, grassy green from a distance, as the leaf reverse is a lighter color than the top. Once established, this is a rapidly growing shrub, on par with the growth rate of the laurels. Spread is variable, but if left unpruned could be 8-10', perhaps wider. This shrub is quite amenable to pruning and it can be hedged if necessary although looks infintely better if allowed to assume its natural, somewhat loose habit. It is not overly expensive, although larger sizes initially can jack up the price if you are impatient. Availability can be sketchy - this is a very popular shrub for this area for a variety of reasons and demand typically seems to exceed supply.

Most of the really good Lowes designers left when they quit paying commission on the sales, right around 4-5 years ago now. The ones that are left could not/would not get jobs elsewhere. Either they are old enough to be thinking of the retirement countdown, or they preferred the steadier lower paycheck of a box store to the risk of commission employment, or they didn't have the skills to be hired elsewhere. You've got a 50/50 shot at getting someone good at a Lowes. At least with a private dealer, they own their mistakes. Meaning that they are forced to learn from them because they are deducted from their commission. No one lasts long in a job if they have to pay to work there! And no shop owner will keep someone that has too many errors. It costs them their reputation as well as $$.

The easiest way to raise any section of your lawn and not be able to see where you worked is to remove the sod. I have raised sections of my lawn and re sculptured the contours by this method. First determine exactly the area that is low, and the contour of the low spot. Using shovel or other similar implement, carefully lift the soil from the area you marked. Make sure that you take sections of sod, that is easy to handle but large enough to make it easy to put them back in when you are finished. I usually like to get pieces that are about a square foot. Fill the hole you have created with the dirt or sand that you are going to use. Over fill the deepest part of the hole and taper it off towards the edges. You want to consider the thickness of the sod you removed. So fill so that with the sod on top the fill it will be level with the surrounding area when the fill has been compacted. I have used this technique to raise area of my yard, where drainage was bad, and to lower areas where there was a bump that I did not want. Done carefully, once you are finished the only way you can tell you did the fill is the dirt on the grass. Within a week you will not be able to tell where you did the fill.