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| Couple lawn questions for all you experts.. First I will write this out then put up a pic.. My back yard is under a huge basswood tree, smallish maple, and a walnut that is current in the proccess of coming out.. I am taking the walnut tree out to get more light on the yard, plus the shells are killing it.. My next steps are to pull the walnut tree, then I have 4 stumps to burn out, three old apple tree stumps and the new walnut..
After these are all gone my questions are about preping my dirt for grass, its PH'ing at 7, I have tilled it only enough to try and level it, (I added a small retaining wall with flower beds) there is old grass still in there but not sure about trying to match grass types or kill everything and start fresh.. My yard has a tons of moss in it, I assume from never being airated or taken care of correctly? Looking to get grass for my 2yr old son to play on, no outdoor pets at the moment, I live in the Portland Oregon area.. If I get this pic to work please add advise..
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Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Sun, Apr 29, 12 at 14:11
| Work on settling the tilled soil so you don't have to deal with it settling unevenly later on. It will continue to settle for 2-3 years after rototilling, but you might be able to shorten that time with some mechanical work now. Water is your friend. First, walk on the soil to compress the fluffy stuff down. If you have obvious low spots at that point, fill them with topsoil and water it. The water will settle it. Water it deeply to settle the deeper fluff. Look again for low spots and fill those. Water that and let it settle. Look again for low spots and fill those. Your soil will become fairly dense as you go through this, but once you get grass growing, the roots will loosen it as will the microbes as they return from being tilled to death. When your soil dries out from being soaked, you should be able to walk on it without sinking in. It should feel soft but not sinkingly soft. Just walk on it and that will compress it right amount. But don't do that on wet soil. When you don't leave foot prints anymore, that is what you want. I believe perennial rye grass is the local favorite for the PNW. If there are varieties of that I'm not aware of them. Actually the PNW is not well represented in this forum. Moss should go away with deep infrequent watering. I realize you have seasons of continual rain but for the rest of the year, back off on the frequency and water longer. Ideally in the summer you should be getting 1 inch per week, all at one time. Spreading out the watering so that the soil surface is always moist is a shortcut to moss and weeds. |
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| I have been walking on it a lot putting in the flower bed.. Its been raining a lot here lately so I actually need it to dryout the top a little so I can try my pallet drag to level, or I have a small section of chain link I can try also.. Is there anything I should add to the dirt now while leveling to prep the topsoil for the seed? Also the tilling I did was mostly to get the ground level not to fluff it up, most of the loose stuff went into the beds.. after I get it in the neighborhood of sloping away from the house as best I can I will till the top 1 inch and have a lightly fluffed bed to plant grass.. I hope!! Does having to different types of grass look funny? I got another pic:
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- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Sun, Apr 29, 12 at 17:18
| You absolutely do not need to till the top inch to make a bed for grass. You are asking for long term bumpiness problems if you till it. Just level it. If your soil is about to get covered with grass, then add everything to the surface of the grass. That's where the proper soil microbes are going to be anyway. Unless you have a really good soil test, you cannot know what the proper amendments would be anyway. That does not look like rye grass. Rye is more yellow-green than most other grasses. What you have looks like my grass (St Augustine) but I'm pretty sure that is some sort of illusion. Do you know what it might be? Besides rye, the other favorite grasses in the north are Kentucky bluegrass and fescue. Fescue is more shade tolerant so I'm guessing it is fescue. If so then it is going to need to be seeded to spread. If you are near Portland then you have a shot at seeding now and actually having it survive the summer. |
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| I haven't the foggyest idea what kind of grass it is? I here ya on the tilling.. Make it level go from there.. I have access to a plate compactor, one for small jobs? If I ran that over it one time then raked out a 1.4 inch of fluff or added a top soil 1/4 inch would that be good? realizing that I DONT want to compact it to much of coarse.. My time frame is closing in here, I would love to have the grass walkable by end of June for my sons Bday party.. But its not looking good.. Thanks for the input dchall san antonio.. |
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