Advice needed – How to fill in low areas

mrwizard93 – posted 23 June 2008 09:54

First of all, I live in Miami, Florida. My lawn is very problematic in that when they put in the sod for my house(tract housing by the way), the contractor put in, in my opinion, too little soil/sand/whatever under the sod – probably along the likes of 1-2 inches MAX and that is the good areas. My lawn is not soft under foot at all. I think this has caused me problems in that the root system has a hard time spreading and giving me that lush full lawn we all strive for not to mention that it seems to have a hard time keeping moisture when it doesn’t rain periodically.

Not only do I have the problems stated above, but my lawn has a noticeable dip on the sides that collects water and does not drain well. After certain periods of rain, i basically have a small pond on the sides of my home. I do admit that over that couple of years that i have lived there, it has started to drain better. Seems as thought the grass is finally breaking through the fill material.

My question is the following – how should I address the low areas? My home faces south and we have 2-story houses on either side, so the grass on either side gets only a couple of hours of full on sun. Should i bring in a tiller to mulch up the grass, fill it in with some sand, and re-sod? Should i just bring in some sand and work it in over time? Or should I just pave the damn thing with concrete and paint it green (sarcasm here)? How much would bringing in some sand/soil/whatever cost?

Any help is appreciated.

Almaroad – posted 01 July 2008 12:45

Start bringing up level with WHITE sand. The grass will come back up through it and when it is lush again add more sand and just a little compost or organic material such as spagnum peat moss. Stay away from soil until the grass goes dormant and then add a thin layer along with some micro-nutrients in liquid form.

mrwizard93 – posted 02 July 2008 08:50

I think I will try that …

BTW, are you talking about the fine white sand or the coarser almond colored playground sand.

Almaroad – posted 02 July 2008 10:48

White sand will hold the roots better. But I’ve used both.