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New Lawn
'Bought a new place this Spring. The guy before me basically had a pasture for a lawn. I'm trying to figure out a good way to level it out. I've come up with 2 alternatives but would appreciate any suggestions. First thought, disc the yard, then till to chop up the clumps of sod. Use a spike harrow to level and fill as needed. Then next spring, plant seed. Second thought, just use a tiller and float along to grind off the high spots. What would a professional landscaper do?
Thanks
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A friend I work with doing landscaping just purchased a Gehl 6635 skid steer. He is thinking about a power rake but will rent one for the time being. These impiments are the sh!t! Make a nice seed bed and remove the rocks, while evening out the terrain/soil. There are other makes and models too, just have to look around and compare. I would suggest renting one and try it out.
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It sure did take me a long while on the handles of a walk-behind tiller to cut sod from a moderate sized garden into the soil. I had taken the sod off by cutting it into squares with a box scraper scarifiers. Then, most of the squares pulled off the ground with very little encouragement from the scraper blade.
I piled the sod to one side but then decided that I'd be taking too much topsoil and so I starting cutting it with a tiller, and cutting and cutting and cut some more. Maybe 3ph tillers and a tractor with HST could make shorter work of it. That was before my compost pile got going really well. Now, I'd just take a few loads of compost to replace soil on the sod. I suppose if I did eat away at the chunks with a tiller, I could use a rake to take out the remaining pieces when I got tired of tending the tiller. Except for the green fertilizer value, taking the sod someplace else would be less work.
Grinding down high spots sounds like a fair bit of work getting dirt off the surrounding grass no matter how the grinding is done. It doesn't take much dirt to kill grass, and many implements would tear up the lawn. I used to end up using hand tools for the last bit of back-filling trenches that go across lawns. It's enough of an aggravation that I took to laying down vapour barrier to dump dirt on.
If the dips aren't too bad, I think it was Murf who suggested using top-dressing periodically, and eventually low spots come up to grade.
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A harley Rock rake depending on turf there but with double rolls is the only way to do it!!!!
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I should have said more, the Harley will level and grade for you, plant this fall and it will be green in the spring! To disturbe it the depth of a tiller you should let it settle out but then you would be back in the spring, get it over with.
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Thanks Art, never heard of one of these. I checked out their web site - looks like its the ticket. May have to look around to rent one, seems like it might be pricey for a one-time restoration project like this. Thanks again for your advice!
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I have converted many former 'pastures' into golf courses over the years, even amongst us 'pro's' the opinions vary as to the best course of action.
The determining factor in my mind is always, "What do you want to achieve, and how fast do you need to get there?" and it is ALWAYS the advise I give my clients.
If all you want is a nice lawn, you have two choices;
1) Tear it up and start over, it will take two seasons minimum, probably four in total. The first season will be a lot of work and a lot of mess. If your wife is not 100% behind this don't even try it.
2) Start with an agressive campaign of cutting, feeding, eliminating weeds, overseeding and top-dressing. This will take two seasons minimum, probably four in total, but the lawn will stay 'green' with the exception of the odd bare spot from filling depressions.
A friend of mine who built a new house on a peice of vacant farm land he owned used this second method under my assistance. It had been worked by an adjoining farmer who took hay off it for his horses. The grass was thick and stringy from going to hay, and it was full of rocks and gopher holes. By the end of the first season it looked like a lawn, after another two years he started calling it the 'front nine'.
Best of luck.
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