Now, the lawn is just dead grass, weeds, and uneven surface. The soil is great, but the surface is not even and the grass looks old and terrible and filled with weeds.

I've been pulling the weeds up by hand, but it is exhausting. I've sprayed bleach but now i'm tired. I've purchased a bottle of Roundup that I want to use to get rid of the rose bushes, but I am hesitant to use on weeds because of it's penchant for worsening the weed problem.

So I'd like to remove the layer of lawn that is there now and make it nice and smooth. I was told that I would be able to accomplish this with something called a "tarp cutter". Yet I can't find any info about this online. Is this true? Is there another way to remove the lawn that's there now even out the surface effectively?

Also, where would I find a tarp cutter? Does anyone have instructions for people wanting to have a new lawn in my situation? Please help!

Thank you.

Sod cutter is the term you're searching for. A sod cutter will remove the top of the grass. It is a machine you would want to rent.

The normal reason for uneven turf is rototilling before the turf was sodded or seeded. You might also have holes left from improper trenching for a sprinkler system, improper backfilling from an underground plumbing replacement. Or perhaps someone removed trees or shrubs and did not refill the hole correctly.

Before you remove anything, why is your grass dead? Did you buy a house with a dead lawn or did it die under your watch? If you let it die, then maybe you should be asking about lawn grasses that can withstand the treatment you are planning to give it. Are you willing to water for a full hour, once a week, in the heat of summer? Do you have watering restrictions? Will pets and children be active on it? Is shade an issue?

Never spray bleach on your lawn. One of the secrets to success in lawn care is to keep your soil bacteria and fungi alive and well fed. Bleach kills them and may not kill your plants. It will leave your soil extremely hard and hard to deal with until the microbes return in great numbers.

I believe roses can be dug up. My mother dug up her roses every few years and replaced them.

I'm not aware of RoundUp worsening weeds. I'm not a big fan of RoundUp but never in these lawn forums has anyone made the claim that their weed problem became worse after spraying it.

There is one proper way to resurface a yard. The proper tool is a box blade pulled behind a real tractor. It is a tool that all good landscapers will have. For a normal lawn it would take less than a morning to complete the job. The surface will be perfect and you'll have perfect drainage when you are finished. Leave it up to the landscaper to decide whether he needs to bring soil in or remove soil from your site. Having said that, releveling your lawn can be a DIY job if you are interested. No tractors or special tools but a lot of bending and heavy bags of sand. I'd want to see a picture of the area before providing further details.

Also where do you live and what kind of grass do you have and want?

I've heard for some time now about the drawbacks of Roundup, particularly it making the weed problem worse, even for home gardeners/communities and not only farmers, as well as it being linked to Multiple Myeloma, Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and other forms of cancer.

Considering their corrupt practices abroad and in the US (Roundup is manufactured by Monsato), there's no way I would trust them or their products. I believe the NY Times has a few writeups about the dangers of Roundup:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.h tml?_r=1

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/glyphocancer.cfm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/11/round-up-cancer-cause_n_84742 3.html

Definitely keeping it out of my yard and away from my family. Unfortunately, I didn't find out any of this until I had already spent several dollars on a bottle. What a waste. I have no idea of how to dispose of the thing, so it remains sealed and stored away.

Personally I consider Round-up acceptable. If you do not then may as well avoid all insecticides and herbicides. You can't exactly spray Round-up on frogs and expect no harm be done but compared to other poisons and bleech. Chlorine is not my friend.

Also avoid clothing and other goods made in Mexico and South Asia. No need to poison their environment to get ya a cool pair of jeans.

A lawn roller will be ineffective at evening out your bumpy lawn. It is not a tool for leveling. The only good use of a lawn roller is to press new grass seed into the surface to ensure good seed-to-soil contact.

Leveling early in the spring is not necessarily the correct time to do that job. It depends on where you are located and what grass you have. It should be done when the grass is growing fast.

You say the grass is all dead right?

Where Are You Located

If you moved from the north to the south, the south has completely different grass than the north does. In the south we grow warm season grasses like Bermuda, Saint Augustine, and Zoysia. In the fall after the first frost the warm season grasses go dormant and sleep for the winter. In the spring when it warms up the grass wakes up and turns green again.

So what I suspect is you are a transplanted yankee in the south and have mistaken dormant grass for dead. Quite a common mistake and if you dig it up a huge error on your part. It will cost you dearly.