How I Leveled My Lawn Without Killing The Grass
Vložit
- čas přidán 15. 05. 2024
- I took a month this Spring to level out a low spot in my Kentucky Bluegrass yard using a mixture of sand and soil. I filled in the low spots in three increments spaced about a week apart and despite raising the ground up a full inch I didn't kill off any of my grass.
See a ton more content on lawn leveling (video and text) on this blog post: turfmechanic.com/how-to-level...
►► Want to fix your lawn but don't know where to start? ◄◄
Start with this free email series:
turfmech.link/dont-know-where...
►► The Absolute Basics Of Lawn Care ◄◄
Learn everything about lawn care in a lot less time.
turfmechanicpremium.com/basics/
►► Need Personalized Help? ◄◄
Book A 1-On-1 Call With Me Today:
turfmechanic.com/book-a-call/
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙
About Me + Resources
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙
♦ About/Contact ~ turfmechanic.com/brian/
♦ Products I Use ~ turfmechanic.com/products/
♦ My Vlog ~ / @turfmechanicvlogs
♦ Latest Yard Tour ~ turfmech.link/latest-yard-tour
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙
Products Referenced In This Video
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙
♦ One-Time Use Gloves ~ www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01...
♦ Skinny Leveling Rake ~ www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09...
♦ Other Products I Use ~ turfmechanic.com/products/
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙
Go Deeper Down The Rabbit Hole (video/blog)
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙
♦ How To Level A Lawn By Hand ~ turfmechanic.com/how-to-level...
♦ What Sand To Use For Lawn Leveling ~ • Which Sand To Level A ...
♦ The Soil Mixture I Used For This Leveling Job ~ • Best Soil Mix For Lawn...
♦ Sharpen Your Mower Blade Effortlessly ~ • The MAIN Reason Why Yo...
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙
Also, Don't Miss These...
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙
♦ Trending Videos From The Channel
turfmechanic.com/trending/
Exactly the guide I was looking for, great vid!
i think it would be nice to see the difference between adding material above ground as you did, and adding material by lifting the turf and replacing. how each method affects the area, how long it takes etc.
that would be a nice visual to see how the turf is affected. I almost made a video something kinda like that last fall along my backyard patio line where I lowered it down but I didn't piece a good narrative together for it so I just put out a short vlog on the topic. This season I want to do more of the underground "leveling" back in the same area by removing material from under the turf.
Just dealt with this the other day where the town's Frick and Frack crew took away my really nice sod last summer to 'fix' a sewer grate (which didn't need fixed), and threw down the cheapest contractor seed you could imagine, and didn't even bother leveling the fillsoil they re-added.
I vacuumed their seed, then scraped their fill soil, then added lawnsoil and matching seed last fall. Soil sank down over winter, and sure enough I had Poa Triv emerging around the perimeter of their work into my yard, which I gly'd and then dug out. I did have some nice rooted grass spots, and used a plugger to pull them. The grass didn't fully fill in because...it wasn't level and spots were getting full sunlight. Leveled it off with TopSoil (which is just as good as Lawnsoil this year), and added my plugs. It already looked better just 3 days later. All these these tips certainly sink in and help me just get this stuff done without having to reference anymore.
That is simultaneously a frustrating story to hear and a great story of resilience on your part. No shame it undoing their lack of expertise and fixing it; just stinks you weren't able to supervise the job they did. If I found the city digging out my water meter unexpectedly I would no doubt be out there like a hawk, I wouldn't complain about them doing it, because they are just doing what they are told to do, but I sure would let them know to be careful and not to put any seed down at all when they were done. Not all of us are home 24/7 though. Great to hear though that your confidence level is high on getting this stuff done. :D
That should be a crime.
Would be cool if you kept that small plot KBG.
Did you know the SF Giants Oracle Park is KBG?
I didn't know that until recently. Also, they have two Husqvarna Robo Mowers that mow the field every day at 1". Pretty cool.
Helpful vid. I just started the slow process of bringing my front bermuda lawn to the vicinity of level. It's a mess of ruts and divots
Just a little improvement here and there goes a long way. Keep at it :D
I love these videos, but it feels like such a daunting task to start fixing low spots in my new backyard. It’s about 90x60ft, still in flux in terms of what’s going to be back there - but my low spots I’m dealing with are several inches all over the place.
I’ve considered gridding the yard out and getting a yard of soil at a time and working on it over time. I’ve also just considered having a company come in and smoothing it out for me so I can just go right to seeding some grass and saving myself the headache.
Any thoughts?
Looks good Brian, I think that rut was deeper than you thought. Have some trouble spots in my lawn that need attention too. Thanks for the tutorial. Cheers ~
I'm really happy with it, kinda wish I would have just heavily fertilized the whole area instead of just the area around and under the rut because that excessive green is starting to stick out like a sore thumb...but I suppose it time it'll all blend back together. And yes, that rut was a lot deeper than I ever thought it was going to get last year. I knew it would settle into one but never figured it would get so bad. It got to the point where I literally had to mow that rut perpendicular to it in multiple passes to cut the low spot uniformly. It feel so much better under my foot and mower now; totally worth the effort.
Brian, don't wait to level it, level it as soon as possible and water extra during the dry periods. Alway correct issues as soon as possible
You are temping me heavily Michael! Especially now that we have entered a 10 day pattern of mild temps. It's unseasonably cool right now, something I didn't plan on last month.
You are your neighbors beefing, Brian? 😂 Ive never seen a curb split the easment quite like that before.
Lol, it's actually fairly common in my neighborhood. There are lots of spreading grasses here next to fescue lawns and you almost need a hard border between those grasses and the landscape beds. Not every lawn has that border between them but an awful lot do. When I hired my concrete guy to do our curb the extra money spent on the parkway strip separation was relatively small so I went for it because I didn't want to fight the neighbors kikuyu in our eventual shrub and butterfly sanctuary forever. We've got 3 tiny milkweed plants growing up there. 🦋
I have to get my backyard level, but it’s close to 8,000 sq ft with one tree with surface roots everywhere. and cost wise it’s just not doable. Hopefully one day I can get it leveled.
For that amount of size you just gotta pick and choose the worst spots to work on. Just fixing the worst spots can make the entire area feel and look much better. Just the tiny bit of material I put in the deepest of the rut in the beginning of this video made much more of a difference than the second and third layers in week 2 and 3. Each extra layer of material gets you closer to perfection but with diminishing returns. Don't underestimate the cost of a yard or two of topsoil from a nursey. They don't typically cost very much at all especially if you have access to a pickup or a trailer. The bagged stuff I used would be way to expensive to use even for a 1000 sqft front yard.
What kind of lawnmower is that? Looks great!!!
I think you're asking about my 19" 82v Snapper push mower. I love that thing. The version I use doesn't have self-propel making it super light and very easy to maneuver. I do sometimes want the 21" version but I don't regret at all getting the push version. I don't like most self-propelled features on the battery mowers. They lock the wheels too much in reverse causing you to drag your mower too often. Very annoying to me. That snapper is cheap too and it's been working like a tank since early 2020. Good durability. You can search for it on Amazon if you like, that's where I bought mine.
How would you go about taking down a high spot. Been here 9 years and the old home owner had at one point a tree in the front grass area. So I have a low spot but also have a high spot.
Depends on the size and shape of the high spot probably but a couple options are using a square cornered flat edge shovel and cutting some square sod out of the top of the high spots then removing a helpful amount of soil from underneath then placing the sod back on top like puzzle pieces. It's not complicated if you cut them square and grid-like. Takes a good bit of energy though and of course feathering the edges flat can take some time. If the high spot is only slightly high then core aeration multiple times through the year can drop the area down little by little. 20 cores per square foot twice a year removes around 12% of the surface area over the course of a year. If you only core aerate the high spots but pull 20 cores per square foot maybe four times a year then you could drop the surface down "probably noticeably" in a single season.
Good info! But please don't speed up the video as you did in the beginning and end. It is disconcerting.
Thanks Mathew, I made a mistake on those two parts in editing, pushed it much faster than I realized. Obviously it's still watchable but I messed that up.
I thought you were Steve Austin, bionic man, for a minute!
Car judging you in the background 🤣
LOL, I didn't notice, I put up my blinders out there :)
Brian, do you have an estimate on how much that soil mix you made costs? I looked up some of those products you used, and some are fairly high-priced. I was just wondering if you estimated that. I'm sure that was super nutrient rich though. That area looks great now!
yeah, I didn't use cheap stuff by any means. I went into the detail of what went intot he soil in this video czcams.com/video/30OLIXqiRiY/video.html but without watching that I believe I used four or five bags of soil I bought locally for about $8-$9 per bag. I Used about 250lbs of all purpose sand (5 bags) that I bought for around $5 each. I then amended the sand soil mix with additives that I already had in the garage (humic acid) (probably about $10 worth, and added some of bag of naturally sourced fertilizers which cost me about $15 locally, and I added a small potting soil bag that contained 50% mix of premium biochar, that was about a $20 bag. I might be missing something off the top of my head. No doubt the mix I put down was spending and premium that's why I don't want to focus in this video on what I used rather than how I used it. Had I just bought half a yard of playsand and brought it in on a trailer it would have cost $20, I spent at least $120 on the ingredients used in this mix and only used it to flatten out a relatively small rut. It was crazy rich though and you can plain as day see how much the lawn liked it even getting covered up three times in three weeks. The fert I used ahead of the leveling was a Lawnbox product, grass genie I believe (10-0-6). It's all OMRI listed ingredients but the primary nitrogen source in that is sodium nitrate, a water soluble source of quick acting fert. Hope that helps.