Wow. Well at least you are honest. I think you pulled the trigger a bit early, but it's too late to undo the Round-up. Since everything is dead or dying, there's not a whole lot you can do, but here's what I would do: Soil test (www.loganlabs.com), get the basic $20 test. Once the results come back, you can add any amendments to your soil, and you won't have to worry about it affecting your grass. Tilling is generally not recommended since it, as you found out, brings up weed seeds, and as you will find out, can lead to a lumpy lawn. You have some time to think about what kind of grass you want, and people on here can help, but we need to know where you live (city, state), and what the conditions of the yard are with regards to how much sun it gets. If your yard has settled with a lot of bumps and holes you can fix that before you seed. Periodically you will get new weeds which is good, since you can take care of them before you seed. If you have shade issues, you can trim or remove trees since you don't have to worry about messing up your lawn. That's basically it, but I'm sure other people will have some more things you can do.

tiemco, tell him about providing pictures. You forgot to tell him about the pictures. C'mon, man. And tell him to relax. Breathe...breathe. And when he gets a beer for himself, he better get one for his lady also. She's gonna need it more than he is. Tell him, tiemco.

Oh yeah, don't forget to document what you are doing. We like to look at pics and so will you (the pic I provided is my back yard). I guess you can try to relax, but when you actually lay the seed, you sweat out everyday, especially the weather, and if you miss a watering, you wonder if all your seeds are dead. Then by day 5 you are wondering where the green fuzz is, then by day 10 you are still wondering. The first day you see fuzz, you feel like a new father. Then every milestone is like a birthday. Your first mow is especially gratifying. Wait, are we still talking about grass? I need a drink.

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Ok, tiemco. I'm pissed. Where are the freakin' weeds in your back yard? How are we supposed to help you if you don't have any weeds?????

Holy wall of text, batman, lol. It was entertaining though!

Soil test, soil test, soil test! I screwed around wasting time for years until I got one this year and the steps I've already put in place have made a bigger difference than anything I've done before.

Wow nice turf, tiemco, surely you photoshopped out all the weeds...??

Nope, no photoshop, in fact that grass was planted last September. There are a few weeds here and there, but not many.

All kidding aside, that lawn does look nice.....and healthy. Or is it? So, if you don't mind, clue us in on some of your practices. For example:

1. Organic feeding exclusively? If so, how much of what product, and when?
2. Watering deep and infrequent, early morning only?
3. Mowing height?
4. Herbicide Use? Any pre-emerge or post-emerge products?
5. Disease control products? Corn meal? Other?

tiemco, thanks for sharing your knowledge unselfishly. I have found in the past year that I just don't have the time to commit to this forum as I once did.

And THAT'S why we call him, Mr. Tiemco! I'm always amused when someone doubts what he says...even if it's me.

Back to the OP.
Have you heard the phrase, "Ready! Fire! Aim!"
You have made many mistakes, but I'm wondering what you have learned?? So far you have not had a lawn to take care of. Wait until you start watering, mowing and fertilizing. There are plenty of chances to make more mistakes and reset yourself back to square 1.

As tiemco said, knowing where you live is important. Zone 5 on the west coast is different from zone 5 in the mountains or on the east coast. At least we know you have frosty winters.

Shade is important but so is traffic. Do you have pets or children who will be tearing it up? Are you going to start caring for it if that means mowing every week and watering when the grass needs it (as much as once a week)? Are you willing to fertilize?

You have a chance now to recover from tilling it. That was a big mistake. You don't want to further that mistake by digging it up again. You do need to find as many hills and holes as you can and move the hills to the holes. Do that carefully or you will create more holes. All you need to do is scrape the top of the hills off. Use that scraped off soil to fill the holes. Then water to settle the soil you moved. Unless you have pure sand, the ground will continue to settle for 3 years. Do what you can now. It is a lot harder to do when there is grass in the way. This is also an opportunity to perfect your drainage. Water must drain away from buildings and into gutters. Sometimes getting this right requires a professional.

You also will not need peat moss when you reseed. I realize there are local customs that seem to require certain processes be performed. Mother Nature does not apply peat moss when She reseeds. She moves grazing animals in with their heavy bodies and big hooves. They knock seeds on the ground and step on them. That ensures good seed-to-soil contact. Ranchers will tell you that grass grows best in the actual hoof prints of the cattle. Anything else you do while planting will negatively affect the seed germination. Seed-to-soil contact is KEY.

You also have an opportunity to tune up your soil. Tiemco suggested the soil test. You can also improve the organic content of the soil with moisture and organic fertilizer. Instead of branded fertilizer, use something like alfalfa pellets. If you have access to used coffee grounds, use as much of that as you can collect. A good app rate is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. The organic fertilizer and water will revitalize your soil in a different way from the soil chemistry test.

Thanks. That grass is one that isn't used by very many people. The backyard is very shady, some might say too shady for grass. I tried some improved poa trivialis for two years, and while that could look nice, it was a very delicate grass that didn't really spread much. It was also a bit too shady back there for it. So last year I killed it all and seeded with Poa Supina, supposedly the most shade tolerant grass you can get. It is also very aggressive, as most voids were closed in two months this spring. It also does better when mowed a bit lower than most cool season grasses. I treat it like I would any lawn. A soil test years ago revealed a very low pH and some deficiencies, but I add the appropriate amendments and test every year to see how everything is going. I fertilize at the appropriate times (I use both organics and synthetics), spot spray weed killer if needed on weeds (so far none used this year), water when the grass needs it (only once or twice this year before the rains came), and mow regularly. Now that the trees are all leafed out it might thin out a bit, but hopefully it will remain thick enough until the fall. Being an alpine grass, it greens up early and goes to sleep late, so it can spread and fill in when other grasses are sleepy. This spring it's spread was amazing, hopefully that will be the same in the fall. So all in all, I have to give a lot of credit to the grass, but it's still early, so who knows what the summer will do to it, but it's grass, so if I treat it properly, it should be OK.

If you get an extended heat spell, I'll be interested to hear how it performs.

Yes, me too. The shade will keep it cooler but CT can get some hot humid weather in July and August, hopefully it will be able to stand up to it.

Hi everyone. I have a problem similar to Ty's, but until I got here and read this thread, I didn't know I'd done anything wrong. I was in fact roaming around the site trying to figure out what to do about the aphids on my honeysuckle, and why a small, thorny, rose?-bush was yellowing insanely. I came to this thread just to make sure I hadn't done anything Ty did, but I think I have. I'm a total Newbie (just signed up last night), I'm doing this alone with no actual from-scratch gardening experience except sowing seeds indoors, and a bit of pruning under my belt. My house plants are all quite healthy, and I've been known to be a recovery center for the ailing plants of friends and family members. Tackling an entire garden seemed slightly insane to me, but I thought it would be a rewarding challenge. I'm going to start a new thread with my specific issues, but I thought it best to begin here since this is where my panic began. I live in zip 11354/11357. What was once a lush lawn of kentucky blue, cared for by my parents and their hired landscapers, became overrun with weeds and zero grass over the 2 years since they moved to another home. They planned on selling this house quickly, so we weren't putting any money or time into landscaping here, but things have changed and now I'm trying to make it beautiful and my own, as I will probably be here for a few more years. I have virtually no garden tools (I know you'll yell at me for this) but I put down some weed-killer with a hose, then borrowed a garden claw from a family friend, and have spent the last 3 weeks tearing up the ground and manually pulling out roots of weeds, digging deep into the dirt with my hands to get as much root out as possible. I finally finished the area I'd like to use as a lawn, but have noticed little green sprouts popping up in the areas I'd tackled weeks ago. Do I go over it again with weedkiller? I've not planted anything new as I only finished tearing up the area last night. I will attempt to post pics of my before and after. There are far more issues happening around the yard right now, but I'll stick to this to keep it relevant to this post.
Before
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mid-way through:
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current:
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HELPPPPPP

Hi TinaMarieNYC:

You will get plenty of good advice from some knowledgeable folks here. If you don't mind, could you start a new thread topic for your post? Just open up a new topic with a title, and then just copy and paste your post and pics into the message box (and don't forget to hit ENTER). :) This way, more people will read your post and you will get more responses. Thanks!

hi to all,, i have some pics i want to post with a message, tiemco how were you able to do that, i have my pics saved on my computer and copy and paste work here

You have to save your pics on a hosting site like photobucket, then you take the pic url and put it in quotes of this:

img src="pic url"

Then you have to put the at the end. So this url:

http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab260/Tiemco_photos/IMG_3719.jpg

becomes
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This is the same view taken at the end of April, quite a difference a month makes.

Before you post your pictures, it works best if you can reduce the width to 800 pixels. So 800x600 works great.

hi to all,and thanks for willing stepping up to help me with this,i live in 60104 zip code which is bellwood il,there is no shade in my yard only on cloudy days,there will be nill to little foot traffic (no kids/pets), i had plan on planting kbg in the yard,dc hall you were right i learned a good lesson,i never had a lawn to take care of or to call my own,i grew up poor on the westside of chicago,i always thought grass was just that grass man i was wrong,as a kidd i remember my uncles turning up the front yard with a pitch fork they wouldn't let us kidds do it they said we would mess around and stab ourself in the foot so we was in charge of picking up the clumps of dirt and shaking them and breaking up the bigger ones with a garden hoe they gave us paint sticks which we had to tie a piece of plastic to and push'em in the ground around where they turn up the dirt we was told it would keep the birds from eating the seeds, all the while they sitting on the front porch drinking old style beer,fastforward to 2012 i did what they did except i didnt use a pitch fork and i had to draw the line some where i wasn't putting paint sticks all around the yard lol,,, thats how i created this and ended u here asking for help on doing this the right way,

my yard when i first applied roundup.

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this is one after roundup effect..

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