Hi everyone,

I am new to all this, as will shortly become obvious. I bought a foreclosed house with a dead lawn about this time last year. In the spring, I tilled up the old dead grass, mixed in some composted manure, did a pathetic job of leveling, and seeded with Sonesta (pretty sure) bermuda from Scotts. The lawn gets watered by three pop-up sprinklers (in the rocks at the left edge of the lawn); right now it's for 30 minutes/4 days a week.

Pictures are attached below.

I have several problems that are obvious even to me.

1. The very poor leveling job I did makes mowing and drainage uneven, and in general looks like garbage. In the first photo, the portion closest to the camera is 2-4 inches lower than the rest of the yard, and everything is lumpy.

2. Rabbits are eating it like candy, and pooping all over the place.

3. The grass seems very sparse, not at all like the carpet I had imagined.

Please critique my newbie thoughts:

1. Level it for real. What should I use to do this? I've seen folks use sand, but several inches of sand in places seems like a bad idea. Purchased topsoil? Roll it also?

2. Keep the darned rabbits out with traps, dogs, fences, guns, etc.

3. Get a real mower and mow it shorter (leveling will make this possible). My current mower is a piece of junk I picked up at a garage sale. It's a walmart-quality reel mower that can't cut very low and bounces around a lot (dull?).

4. Perhaps add another sprinkler head or two for better coverage (may not be possible or even necessary).

Are my expectations too high? Lawn still too young? Thanks for looking and for your help.

Here's the whole thing (can't figure out how to rotate it, sorry!)

{{gwi:119087}}

Short/bare spots, see all the rabbit turds?

{{gwi:119089}}

Closeup of the thin grass

{{gwi:119091}}