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| So for 4th of July we plan on having friends and family over for a big cookout, bonfire, camping, and of course a giant slip n slide! This will be the first time for me building such a thing, and naturally I have some lawn care questions relating to the slip n slide. Our house is situated on a pretty good hill with about a 15-20' drop over the first ~60 feet of the run, after that the drop tapers off then eventually flattens out at the end. My plan is this:
a) Purchase a 10' wide by 100' long sheet of WHITE 6mil poly sheeting for the slide. This step has already been done. I chose white based on recommendations from other sites. Clear plastic can scorch a lawn, and black will make the water evaporate too rapidly and may dry out the slide. b) Construct a pool near the bottom of the slide to stop people from running off the end and to catch water to prevent a giant mudhole. I plan on using a 20' x 20' tarp or black poly sheeting for this. The pool would be about 10' wide by 15' long. The plan is to buy sandbags and use them to construct a 3 sided pool near the base of the drop. c) Step C is all about durability and comfort (hopefully). As there may be a fair amount of beer involved in the use of the slide. Again, based on a recomendation take a 2x4 and roll the plastic around it 4-5 times at the top of the hill and drive stakes through the plastic and wood to secure the slide to the ground. (This should prevent tearing) Secondly, I have lots of leftover carpet padding from a recent install. I plan on layering this under the first 10 or 20 feet of the run to cushion peoples landing during takeoff. d) Stretch the run taught and use sandbags along the run to keep the poly in place. Okay, now for the questions: 1) I plan on preparing the site for the slide at least 1-2 days before the "event" and it may stay in place for 3-4 days. How long can I reasonably leave the poly sheet in place without destroying my lawn? 2) Should I pump out the water in the "pool" after we are finished, or can I just let it go in the yard and get absorbed naturally? Some have also suggested rigging up a pump DURING the event to recycle water to the top of the slide and prevent overflowing the pool into the yard. Thoughts on this? 3) Concerning comfort of the riders, do you think it would be wise to let the grass grow out for an extra week or so in the designated strip for the slide? My idea is, let the strip for the slide grow long while cutting the rest. Hoping that this will leave a nice "carpet" of grass under the slide and add some padding. 4) About 2 days before the event I plan to cut the grass adjacent to the slide a bit shorter than usual and bag it to keep clippings out of the water. Another option would be to side-discharge the clippings onto the area where the slide will go, again adding extra padding. Thoughts on this one? 5) Lastly, any other ideas on how to construct the pool at the bottom. I don't mind the idea of sandbags, but it will take almost 50 of them which I have to fill, stack, then empty later. Not to mention having to order the sand, and what to do with it when I'm done. Pool doesn't have to be very deep. 6-12" should work great. Any other ideas and comments are welcome! (I may even post some pictures of the project once completed.) Really hoping to not destroy my front lawn as it is nice and thick and the only part of my property that has a decent lawn. Unfortunately, it is the only area with a good enough slope for the slide. Thanks in advance! |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| All I have to say is that the neighbors put down a store bought slide (yellow) for a day (6-7 hrs.) and you could see the shape of the slide perfectly in the form of dead grass for the rest of the year. |
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- Posted by dpurvis1984 none (My Page) on Thu, May 17, 12 at 20:50
| The poly that I have purchased is called Panda Film. (Used mostly in hydroponics) It is black on one side and white on the other. Per the manufacturer it is supposed to block the majority of light, with the white side reflecting 90%. This should prevent the magnifying effect of a clear film and water. It shouldn't be too hard to take down the slide at the end of the night to prevent too much damage, but the pool at the landing is another story. |
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| It's not the light--it's the heat. |
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- Posted by dpurvis1984 none (My Page) on Thu, May 17, 12 at 21:18
| Alright, so assuming I am going to damage the grass in pursuit of fun, what can I do to minimize the damage? Only keep the slide in place on the day we are going to use it? How about raking the grass after I remove the slide to help it stand back up and not stay matted down? |
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| I'm not trying to give you a hard time. Twenty years ago I might have done the same thing for the fun of it. These days I try to do everything I can not to damage my lawn. I just really have no experience in this or advice. Take a shot at it and see what happens. Let us know how it turns out. If it works maybe I'll set one up in the backyard for the g'kids. |
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- Posted by dpurvis1984 Leslie, MI (My Page) on Wed, May 23, 12 at 15:38
| So I am changing up the plan a bit, which should be a bit more yard friendly as well as back friendly. I still plan on having the giant slide, but instead of bringing in sand and sand bags I will just buy a half dozen "Pool Noodles." You know the big foam floaty noodles? They make some that are a good 6" diameter. If I put those under the plastic at the end of the slide, the water should naturally pool up. Wont be quite so deep, but much easier to manuever and clean up after the day. One site I found shows them applying velcro under the plastic (before the water was on) and using it to hold the noodles in place. I will let you know how it goes. As far as the lawn goes: Any thoughts on letting the grass grow out to 8" or so before the slide goes in? Hoping this will add cushion. Am I more likely to damage the grass if I let it grow out? |
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- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Wed, May 23, 12 at 21:32
| Fist of all this sounds like a hoot! Above all, have fun. You can always fix the lawn. To minimize the damage I would let it grow as you are thinking. Second, I would make this a picnic project. Get all the early arrivals involved in building it. This will minimize the time the plastic is smothering the grass. Then pull it up quickly when the party is over. When you mow again, do not scalp it back down. Bring it down a little at a time. Scalping it back to 4 inches from 8 would add more stress to the situation. You might need to use a string trimmer to bring it down slowly. Cut a little the next day and a little more a couple days later. Repeat until you are mowing again. During the summer you are not advised to fertilize with chemicals. You can; however, fertilize with organic fertilizer every day of summer if you like. It works in a different way and will not burn or stress the lawn. Fertilizing every 2 weeks after the event might help speed the recovery. What kind of grass are we talking about? Fescue or Kentucky blue? |
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- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Wed, May 23, 12 at 21:33
| I with you could edit your posts after you mistakenly hit the Submit button. That should start out First of all..., not Fist of all. That's hoot all by itself. |
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- Posted by dpurvis1984 Leslie, MI (My Page) on Wed, May 23, 12 at 23:32
| Not sure on the grass type. The previous owner put it in, and I just bought the house. It is definitely a mix. I think there is a fair amount of KBG in the lawn because my black lab regularly kills large spots which quickly turn a crispy brown until after a good rain or two. Then the spots spring back to life and turn a nice deep (fertilized) green. Other reason I think it is KBG is the density compared to other parts of my yard. It is extremely thick like carpet whereas the rest of my yard is thin and patchy. |
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- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Thu, May 24, 12 at 23:48
| Yes you are describing KBG. The reason your dog pee kills the grass is you are not fertilizing it enough when you fertilize. You can speed up the recovery of the dog pee spots with a heaping handful of sugar on each spot. Water it only enough to melt the sugar down into the soil. Sugar feeds the bacteria that are needed to process the dog pee. When they get sugar they increase their population and they can handle the dog pee faster. |
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| we had a lot of fun with the ready made slip and slide but it always messes up the lawn. The lawn gets so wet and muddy and with all of the pounding, you will get ruts. There is so much compaction because of all of the water. Just enjoy it and take care of it later. But it is not something you want to do to your lawn very often. Let someone else use their lawn next time! |
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- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Sat, May 26, 12 at 23:06
| Compaction is something that didn't come to mind but it should be a concern. You can recover from any damage but it could be you need to baby the area for awhile. |
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- Posted by dpurvis1984 none (My Page) on Tue, Jun 12, 12 at 22:09
| So I did a test run this weekend with the slide. It has been 3 days and so far the lawn has recovered nicely. The only noticeable damage is in the center part of the slide where all the grass has laid down sideways. I jumped on this right after taking down the slide by gently raking the grass upright and watering well (odd as it sounds). The soil under the slide was still bone dry after we finished up. I figured a good soaking would help the stressed grass recover better. I will add: prior to testing the slide, we hadn't had rain in 11 days. My sandy soil had been dried out for well over a week. Add to it high daily temps in the high 80's, and pushing 90 several days. Needless to say the lawn was already stressed badly before setting up the slide. So my pre-slide lawn prep will be as follows: - Starting 2 weeks before the event I will stop cutting the grass. (I want it to be very tall on the day of) I am not going to setup the slide early. It only took me about 20 minutes to prep the slide this time around, and during the event I will have plenty of eager helpers. The morning of the event I am going to get out early and water the area under the slide before putting the slide down. This should soften the soil a bit and make the ride a bit smoother (Something I should have done during the test run...ouch) The landing "pool" will be a separate sheet of poly that is black to keep the water warmer. This "pool" will be constructed with pool noodles underneath to form the bowl shape, prevent injury, and make setup and tear down a breeze. I took pictures, but will have to post them separately. I will keep you posted! |
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- Posted by Lawn_Hobby none (My Page) on Wed, Jun 13, 12 at 0:46
| People are probably going to yell at me for saying this (I'm not extremely experienced either at this point...just starting out like you). But I'm a big proponent of (gently) raking the grass like you said after exposure to traffic to get it upright again, even though it's not recommended by experts. Some say never rake because you'll damage the crowns of the plants, and leaves are expendable...but I agree with the raking you did, because matted grass often becomes dead grass quickly due to suffocation and disease. Lately we've had a lot of heavy trucks and stuff going over one part of the lwan, and I've been a raking fanatic every single time afterword. Granted, I have ryegrass in that area, which tolerates mechanical abuse well. But I do not want my grass matted, because in my experience that causes big problems. I'd rather have it torn up from the excessive truck traffic on rainy days than to have it matted down and die out. The way I see it, yse, the leaves are expendable, but if they're all matted down, you're going to suffocate the roots and maybe kill the plant. My only regret was mowing the lawn last week. If only I had left it long, less of the roots would have gotten pulled out when a vehicle with deep treads went over it. In any case, it will be an interesting experiment to see how well the rye grass regenerates. I'll probably shoot some photos over teh next few weeks and post them in my thread to trask the progress. I might consider a low concentration nitrogen application to that area when the grass starts to come back (even though you're not really supposed to fertilize this time of year). Regardless, I'm redoing that area this August. And I'm redoing it with TTTF and KBG, not PR. By then, there won't be a need for truck tolerance. Worst case, you can reseed later like I'm going to do. |
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| Good advice by DChall. I did the same thing on a smaller scale years ago. My main advice is to keep the plastic wet while you have it on the grass to keep it cooler. I don't know about your area, but in mine I have killed a lot of bluegrass/fescue by leaving kids plastic pools and slip and slides on them for just a hot afternoon. That happened with both clear and colored plastic water toys.I think it is the temp the stuff gets as much as anything. That happened with both clear and colored plastic water toys. But, that shouldn't alarm you, if you keep it wet/cooler and then remove when done, with your sandy soil and the other precautions you are taking, I don't think you'll have any big long term damage. Give it a little extra water, organic fertilizer and mowing and it'll be good as new in no time. |
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- Posted by dpurvis1984 none (My Page) on Thu, Jun 14, 12 at 17:12
| Lawn has responded nicely so far and I can barely even tell where it was anymore. Good idea on the over seed Lawn_Hobby. I do have a reno project planned for this fall and if I have any seed left over from the back yard I may over seed the front lawn too. |
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