Starting a new lawn?

[water rat]

A question to you yard Guru's

My back yard is In rough shape from dogs(are now trained)A new patio and just never having an established lawn.. I would like to bring In a load of top soil? and level to get rid of the ups/downs and start with new seed...I'm a yard rookie and need to know do I kill all the vegetation prior to adding new soil? I'm looking at adding about 2-4" of soil to taper awy from the house and meet the height of the new patio

I guess I need to know the best way to go about this.. I'm In the trades and not working a whole lot so I'm not looking to spend major $$$ I just would like to have more green from grass than from weeds.

thanks for any help!

[Tom7227]

Up that way a big problem is the sandy soil. If you have a lot of sand then you may want to consider hauling in a lot of clay and working it in. You need a lot of organic material to get a decent lawn and with the sand you end up with a sort of weak lawn that you have to water constantly to keep it going. Trucksfull of compost, rotted manure, whatever you can get your hands on. I doubt you can afford to haul in enough topsoil to get the 4+ inches you need across the lawn. Look around your neighborhood and see who has the best looking lawn and stop and ask them what they did. Depending on how much ground you have you may want to just plant some if it to native prairie. Check with Prairie Restoration in Stacy - it might even be worth it to have them come out and give you a plan. They charge a hun for it but they'd give you a plan that gave you exactly what needed to be done. I had them check out an area in my yard and the cost to have them do the work was way beyond my means. I did the work myself and it's turned out pretty decent. Ton of work though.

[LwnmwnMan2]

water -

You're going to have to look around for decent soil. I don't know if John's Black Dirt out of Wyoming is still running or not, I'm sure they are, but can't tell you for sure.

Hopefully you don't get something with alot of peat, as that's just as bad as the sand.

You can get piles dumped wherever you like, as long as they can get in there with a dump truck or trailer. Then move the piles around with a wheelbarrow or skidsteer and rake them out.

We've done this before on properties and it works great!

[Tom7227]

I've re-read your post. The guy at the Hugo Feed Mill does a great job giving advice and selling you the seed and fertilizer products that work best for your setup. I would spend some time wtih him or someone else in that business and get off on the right foot. If you get shady area seed and put it in the wrong place you're s o l . Same with the fertilizer. They will want to know soil types, shade vs sun, slopes, amount of traffic. IMO going to a big box and buying off the shelf without proper advice is a bad idea, and that 16 year old kid in the outdoor garden area won't know squat.

[LwnmwnMan2]

You can also go to the Forest Lake feed mill.

[water rat]

Thanks for the replies! I will stop In at Hugo and Forest lake and have a Talk with somebody,I do have some really shady area's and very sunny areas...

Thanks again!

[Tom7227]

Hugo the guy is Steve - tall skinny guy maybe in his 50's. I'm not sure how late he works.

[hotrod1]

maybe talk to someone that has a bobcat and see what it would cost to have them just move some of your existing soil around to change the grade to the way you would like it. May be worth it to compare the prices of just excavating vs. adding soil and excavating?

I live in East Bethel, very sandy soil, and have no problem getting the grass to grow nice...we do have an irrigation system which of course helps.