# Starting my lawn from Scratch!



## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

You need to get your soil tested to see what it needs, anything else is just guessing.
I've never seen anyone roto tiller a whole yard to just plant grass.
Go on the Scotts web site for expert advice and ask questions.
By tilling the soil you have planted all the weeds seeds below the surface.


----------



## titanoman (Nov 27, 2011)

Me neither. I thought you were building a garden.


----------



## 95025 (Nov 14, 2010)

gashuffer said:


> Hey all. Just joined the forum. I'm looking for some advice on where to go next. I just rototilled most of my entire backyard.
> 
> Currently my plan to prep the dirt is.....
> 
> ...


Typically you don't till that deep for grass. But now that you already have...

- Shallow till in your fertilizer/manure.
- Rake/drag it as smooth as possible. (Are you using a garden tractor?)
- Fill that roller with water and get this thing packed back down.
- Trench in your sprinkler system.
- Scratch the surface with a rake, sow the grass seed, and work it shallowly into the soil. *I would NOT recommend sod.
- Water it well. Soak it twice daily, but don't flood it. Figure on it taking at least 10 days for the grass to germinate. Don't get frustrated.


This is going to be a large and long project for you! The new grass is going to be very spotty and fragile the first year. You _will_ be frustrated. Because you've tilled so deeply, your base is going to be pretty soft. You will need to spray for broad-leaf weeds, and you will also need to fill in low spots each year and seed them. 


Just keep at it. Don't expect miracles over night. Good luck!


----------



## Ironlight (Apr 13, 2011)

DrHicks said:


> *I would NOT recommend sod.


Why not?


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

joecaption said:


> You need to get your soil tested to see what it needs, anything else is just guessing.
> I've never seen anyone roto tiller a whole yard to just plant grass.
> Go on the Scotts web site for expert advice and ask questions.
> By tilling the soil you have planted all the weeds seeds below the surface.


Yeah, I may ask my neighbors tomorrow to see what they did. Or ask at home depot what they have seen for the area.

I tilled the whole thing because I tried digging and the dirt was super hard. I guess I could have just gotten a trencher.....oh well now tho!


----------



## 95025 (Nov 14, 2010)

Ironlight said:


> Why not?


Price, for one.

Also though (this is an observation from back in the law-care days) it seemed to me that newly sodded lawns took a LONG time to grow deep roots. The sodded lawns we mowed were always the first to brown out in the heat of the summer.


Other opinions will differ.


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

DrHicks said:


> Typically you don't till that deep for grass. But now that you already have...
> 
> - Shallow till in your fertilizer/manure.
> - Rake/drag it as smooth as possible. (Are you using a garden tractor?)
> ...


The dirt was pretty torn up from gophers. I wanted a fresh start. Killing weeds is fine. I can do that or pull them as I mow.

I cant wait to seed! I wasn't going to do sod, just cuz I hear you will get a better looking yard from seed. Ill see tho! My buddy just sodded his backyard. So i can compare to his.

So you wouldn't suggest laying sprinkler lines before packing the soil down? I was planning on laying the lines tomorrow, but i could always pack it tomorrow. I guess i would know the ground height better if i do it in your order.....


----------



## 95025 (Nov 14, 2010)

gashuffer said:


> So you wouldn't suggest laying sprinkler lines before packing the soil down? I was planning on laying the lines tomorrow, but i could always pack it tomorrow. I guess i would know the ground height better if i do it in your order.....


I'm not thinking that burying water lines in soft, unstable soil is the right thing to do. The soil IS going to move & settle.


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

DrHicks said:


> I'm not thinking that burying water lines in soft, unstable soil is the right thing to do. The soil IS going to move & settle.


True that. I guess I will head to home depot in the morning and snag some fertilizer. They open at 7am. I want to get all the tilling done by noon tomorrow. I have to have the tiller back to home depot by 12:30 for the 24 hour mark. Not a big deal if I cant make it in order to do it right tho. 

Then when I return the tiller at 12:30, I'll pick up a water drum to bring back and pack it all down. Then trench and put the lines in tomorrow afternoon/monday morning. Then seed on Monday since it's a holiday for us government workers! 

Should work out nicely.....in my head at least. :laughing:


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

Altho, I need to pick up a pressure sensor to see how much PSI my lines have. I'm pretty sure it should be plenty, but here is my current sprinkler design....

I have 5 heads per line. Two lines. I have three lines total in the back, but one will be dedicated to a drip system for whatever trees or bushes I put on the outside....


----------



## 95025 (Nov 14, 2010)

gashuffer said:


> True that. I guess I will head to home depot in the morning and snag some fertilizer. They open at 7am. I want to get all the tilling done by noon tomorrow. I have to have the tiller back to home depot by 12:30 for the 24 hour mark. Not a big deal if I cant make it in order to do it right tho.
> 
> Then when I return the tiller at 12:30, I'll pick up a water drum to bring back and pack it all down. Then trench and put the lines in tomorrow afternoon/monday morning. Then seed on Monday since it's a holiday for us government workers!
> 
> Should work out nicely.....in my head at least. :laughing:


You might want to look for a local seed company. Some of the grass seed at HD could be several years old. The local company would probably have a more knowledgeable person to talk to, about seed, than the guy at HD.


----------



## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

Next project ask before doing and we can save you some extra work.
Any box store is not the place to asking questions.


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

DrHicks said:


> You might want to look for a local seed company. Some of the grass seed at HD could be several years old. The local company would probably have a more knowledgeable person to talk to, about seed, than the guy at HD.


Ok good idea. I also thought about that "hydro seed" stuff. Any opinions on having that blown on?

I don't have to seed Monday anyway. once it is all set up, I can do it really any day.


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

joecaption said:


> Next project ask before doing and we can save you some extra work.
> Any box store is not the place to asking questions.


Box store is like home depot or lowes?

Yeah, i should have before I started this huh. Live and learn I guess! :jester:


----------



## 95025 (Nov 14, 2010)

gashuffer said:


> Ok good idea. I also thought about that "hydro seed" stuff. Any opinions on having that blown on?
> 
> I don't have to seed Monday anyway. once it is all set up, I can do it really any day.


I've never done hydro-seeding, but I've seen it done and what I saw was impressive.


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

DrHicks said:


> I've never done hydro-seeding, but I've seen it done and what I saw was impressive.


Interesting.  Time to see how much this stuff costs. I would think it will be more than seed but less than sod....

It looks like I can buy 5 lbs of tall fescue for 25 bucks. Should cover my 1600 sqft.


----------



## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

Read some of the older post and see how often this happens.
People completly gut a whole bathroom and have no tools and no idea on how to put it all back together. It's what they saw on TV so it must be ok. Some how they think you can do a whole bathroom in a weekend.


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

joecaption said:


> Read some of the older post and see how often this happens.
> People completly gut a whole bathroom and have no tools and no idea on how to put it all back together. It's what they saw on TV so it must be ok. Some how they think you can do a whole bathroom in a weekend.


I have had a plan. The order of which I will execute this plan has just been tweaked due to DrHicks help. 

I've also laid sprinklers before, but never made up my own layout. I figure just make sure I've got 2x or 3x overlap and I should be good. If I need to change something down the line, oh well. I'll dig it up and modify it to the best I can. Learning experience if I don't get it totally right at first.

I can see that a lot of people start home improvements before even the slightest thought. This was not something I woke up this morning and decided to do.


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

Update from the day.....

I finished up rototilling and mixing in some manure, peat moss and gypsum. Then, rented a lawn roller when I returned the rototiller. Started flattening and this is what I ended with for the day. 

The center part that isn't touched was a big soggy from watering and tilling. So I'm going to let it dry overnight and hopefully I can get that set tomorrow.










AND! One reason I rototilled was because when I bought the house the lawn was completely infested with gopher holes. And what do you know! As I was flattening, my dog was focusing on a specific area pretty intensly. So I walked over to see what he was interested in and there was a nice big gopher coming thru the surface! One slam with the rake in his area pretty much took care of him.


----------



## 95025 (Nov 14, 2010)

Dead gopher = a good day!


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

Yeah! I got one only tho. I looked back out at my lawn a few minutes ago and there is a huge mound right in the middle of the flat area. Wtf. War is on.


----------



## 95025 (Nov 14, 2010)




----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

Some updates. I have 3 valves. I am dedicating two to the grass and 1 to the drip system that will be going around the outside next.

6 total sprinklers. I am using the Rain Bird AG-5. Three along the back and three along the front. I should be able to have them cross over and get at least double coverage everywhere that is grass. Some places 3-4 times.

Here is my first trench. I wasn't able to get this finished yesterday as it gets dark so darn early. So hopefully I won't have to work late again tomorrow and I can finish with some light. 











Here is my second trench. It is complete and I'll just need to tweak the height of the heads and the direction and range of motion for each head.












This is a closer up of the AG-5 head. These things cover some ground!


----------



## EvilNCarnate (Jan 27, 2011)

gashuffer said:


> Yeah, I may ask my neighbors tomorrow to see what they did. Or ask at home depot what they have seen for the area.
> 
> I tilled the whole thing because I tried digging and the dirt was super hard. I guess I could have just gotten a trencher.....oh well now tho!


For packed dirt you can aerate, its a fun machine to run :laughing:. For gophers though, I dont know I think Bill tried everything on those things and never could get rid of his. However tilling in some good mix was a great idea as you can always improve soil conditions. I cut some sand into my soil because it has a lot of clay so it helps with drainage. 



DrHicks said:


> Price, for one.
> 
> Also though (this is an observation from back in the law-care days) it seemed to me that newly sodded lawns took a LONG time to grow deep roots. The sodded lawns we mowed were always the first to brown out in the heat of the summer.
> 
> ...


 I would have to agree, I use to be a lawn care guy and I saw the same. Customers that seeded their lawn had a tough first year or two but the roots grew with the grass. By year three they had green year round where the sod lawns were browning out. I have a seeded lawn and I feel prouder of my lawn knowing I made it.


----------



## 95025 (Nov 14, 2010)

EvilNCarnate said:


> I would have to agree, I use to be a lawn care guy and I saw the same. Customers that seeded their lawn had a tough first year or two but the roots grew with the grass. By year three they had green year round where the sod lawns were browning out. I have a seeded lawn and I feel prouder of my lawn knowing I made it.


There is NOTHING worse than mowing first-year seeded grass! Instant green putty. :no:


----------



## RegLearning (Oct 23, 2011)

Hey guys,

A few things just to put my two cents in. I am certified irrigation tech and a golf course superintendent. I would never seed over sod. Sod is much more stable, easier to put down and establishes quicker. As far as it burning out faster in the summer, he just put in an irrigation system, use it. Try to get the most even throw with your heads as you can, otherwise you may end up with soaked areas and dried areas. I would spring for some good rich topsoil over top of what you have, something like a compost mix before sodding. If you aeriify and fertilize properly while limiting your water to deep and infrequent watering you will grow great roots with any grass.


----------



## picflight (Aug 25, 2011)

What size tiller did you use & rental cost?
How did you trench?

I have a very similar size yard and in the same condition as yours with gophers to deal with.


----------



## picflight (Aug 25, 2011)

I see you have two different size pipes, what is the fat one for and what size is that?


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

picflight said:


> What size tiller did you use & rental cost?
> How did you trench?
> 
> I have a very similar size yard and in the same condition as yours with gophers to deal with.


The tiller was like a 24" one that i rented from Home Depot. I think it was like 80 bucks for the day. It wasn't that bad, but working it was pretty rough. Definitely soak the area with water for a few hours prior to tilling. 



picflight said:


> I see you have two different size pipes, what is the fat one for and what size is that?


The smaller pipe (3/4") is for the irrigation. The larger pipe (3") is for the drainage.


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

After a long while of down time, I have finally gotten hydro seed. Work travel and other family issues pushed me back. But! it worked out for the best I think since the past month was pretty cold here. So....here are some pictures!

Drains for when it rains hard here in SoCal a few days a year....









The dirt prior to being sprayed.



















Mixing the hydro seed.











Final product!









I went with a company called Brightgreen Hydroseeding ( http://www.brightgreenhydroseeding.com/ ). Run by a guy named Scott. He was a huge help through the process and really knows his stuff! Hydroseed was only $300 for 1500sqft. 

I chose to go with hydroseeding over sod or just seeding myself. I just read too many bad things about sod not taking and/or the roots already being established and what seemed to be more prep work to the lawn. Which I did a lot anyway, but hopefully that will payoff with great roots from a plant that grows from a seed to adult all in the same soil!

Next job, trees and other landscaping around the outside of the grass! It never ends!


----------



## 95025 (Nov 14, 2010)

gashuffer said:


> After a long while of down time, I have finally gotten hydro seed. Work travel and other family issues pushed me back. But! it worked out for the best I think since the past month was pretty cold here.
> 
> I went with a company called Brightgreen Hydroseeding ( http://www.brightgreenhydroseeding.com/ ). Run by a guy named Scott. He was a huge help through the process and really knows his stuff! Hydroseed was only $300 for 1500sqft.
> 
> ...


It looks good - and for $300! I assumed it would be quite a bit more than that.

I assume they gave you specific instructions for watering and care, right? 

Be sure to post pictures when the grass is growing! :thumbsup:


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

DrHicks said:


> It looks good - and for $300! I assumed it would be quite a bit more than that.
> 
> I assume they gave you specific instructions for watering and care, right?
> 
> Be sure to post pictures when the grass is growing! :thumbsup:



Yup! $300 was a great price! When I called him up, I was expecting something closer to $700-800. He puts a lot of thought and effort into just a $300 job.

Instructions for watering for the first week is just keep it damp but 3-4 light waterings a day. So I think I will be doing 4 times, about 2 min each and see how it goes dampness wise. If I need to bump it to 3 min each, I will. Once the seeds start growing, I will back it off to 3 times a day with about the same total watering time as 4 times a day. Then, I will back it to 2 times a day once the grass starts showing a bit more and keep about the same total watering time again.

Fertilizing instructions are in 3-4 weeks add more nitrogen with no weed killers or crab grass killer or alike.

I should be good to go though! I can't wait to start seeing all my baby grass pop up!


----------



## SingleGuy (Feb 13, 2012)

WOW! I can't wait to see what this looks like when it's grown in some  Nice job!


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

The first sprouts! It has been 9 days since the hydro seed went down. The longest blade I saw was about 1/2". I keep going out of travel for work during the week so it is making watching grass grow much less painless!


----------



## SingleGuy (Feb 13, 2012)

That's looking great


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

This is 12 days after planting!


----------



## psilva8 (Jan 12, 2012)

A buddy of mine who hydroseeded his entire front lawn. At first he wasn't all that happy cause he said he had quite a few bare locations. By the fall he had the best looking lawn on the block.


----------



## gashuffer (Jan 15, 2012)

It's been a little bit since I've updated this, but here are a couple new pics. The grass is growing well. Better in shaded areas, but that was expected. Overall, I think it's coming in nicely. It has been about 4 weeks (30 days) since I put the seed down on the yard.

My project this weekend was to plant a few trees. I got a Hass Avocado, a Fuerte Avocado (on order), a Fuyu Persimmon, Blenheim Apricot and a Moro Blood Orange. 

I can already tell that the avocado tree is living up to what I read about them being a pretty tough tree to grow. My Hass has only been in for a day or so and the leaves are already starting to shrivel up some. I hope it is just the shock from moving!


The Persimmon will go on the left, the Apricot is in the corner there and then the Fuerte Avocado will go in the open area on the right.










The other half of the yard....Hass on the left and then the Moro Blood Orange in the right corner. And, my hummingbird feeder.


----------



## Janetp (Apr 1, 2012)

If people think you went overboard, let me tell you that you're not alone.
We tilled an area 90x24 that was weeds, weeds, and more weeds. The ground was so hard, we couldn't get a shovel in.
DON"T til any farther that you have. Grass only requires a few inches, and the farther you go down, the more junk you put into any good soil you may have. 
I'm probably a bit nutty, but after we tilled 13 years ago, as we down about 8 inches not knowing either, we used a large screen and literally SIFTED all the rocks, glass and weeds, That took an entire day. We removed about 1,000 pounds of nasty, and replaced about 15 large bags of peat ( we has clay) about 25 lawn and leaf garden bags full of leaves we collected the following year that we ground up with the lawn mower and were semi-composted, as well as 10 bags of grass clipping from a neighbor who has a weedless lawn. All high in nutrition for a great start.The rest was a humus and manure mix.We then had torrents of rain for 2 weeks, which was a blessing as it helped to break everything down. we gave it a about 5 days after the rains, and it apparently not good to move soil around that is too wet.

We level and packed it down to get our slope and make it even. We used seed and some seed fertilizer when we first put it down,rolled it again, and watered it 3 times a day, as the weather was in the high 60's low 70's. THe watering is just as important for the seeds to germinate as it is for the roots to grow, and not shallow towards the very top. THey only have roots about 2-3 inches, but by watering you make the roots go down, which dimishes the changes of the frass not keeping it's green color and durability throughout the season. In less than 2 weeks, we has a green matt in our yard and have had so ever since. We have only done the recommended feeds that also help to maintain weeds and grubs before winter, early spring and summer for the past 13 years and our lawn looks picture perfect. It gets a LOT of traffic, as we party all summer and have many friends and family on the patio and in the pool.THe kids( and adults) play in the grass all the time, and it looks wonderful. It was a lot of work and it was not cheap, but it was well worth the effort for all the years it has given us pleasure. There are some projects we did once and know never to do again, but this was not one of them. THe kids can play and I know there is no glass or rocks out there.We were also able to slope our yard away from the house to avoid any flooding, as we live in a high flood area. Since then we have never gotten a drop of water in our basement. You cannot tell, but the back of the yard is about 7 inches lower than the front, which seems to have been enough for us. We have only watered our lawn if we do not have rain for 2 weeks for the past 12 years. When you do water, you only need to water so the first 2-3 inches are moist, as that's as far as thier roots go. 
I also bought about 500 crocus bulbs and added them into the soil before we seeded. Our lawn is covered with colorful crocus in the spring and the neighbors love it as much as we do! One they die back, we cut the grass to remove the heads. THe stems looks like grass, so you cannot tell where they are until them bloom again.
I have used sod in the past, and I know that seeding a lawn gives you better results. I have tried both methods in several homes, and seeding produces a stronger more durable ground cover in my opinion. We are weedless and love it!! Hope this helps.


----------

