a012210 – posted 06 September 2011 13:56
Hi everyone, I’m new to the forum.
My backyard is tiny 40′ x 40′ but because of full sun I planted Tiffway bermuda last summer. It’s beautiful now. I went the poor mans route and bought several pieces of sod, cut them in sections and just laid them out around my backyard with space in between knowing it would spread. There is no mix of fescue as that was all killed off.
The yard looks awesome but there are dips and valleys in the lawn so when I cut the grass (with my reel mower) I “scalp” some of the sections because the wheels may drop slightly lower in the “dips”.
My thought was to manually go around and feel for the low spots and fill them in with topsoil.
Would love any suggestion (other than dig it up and start over
seed – posted 29 September 2011 23:26
A verticutter (also called a vertical mower) aggressively loosens the soil and grass in high spots that you select, and what doesn’t get thrown out can be redistributed with a rake, maybe to adjacent low areas. Don’t overdo it, but bermudagrass is the best grass to do this in because it grows back more quickly (in the warm months).
A so-called “power rake” is not the same thing as a verticutter; because the blades swivel, they don’t bite into the soil.
Low spots can be filled in by hand and they might be identified at night by holding a flashlight parallel to and near the ground. Once they are filled in they will tend to smother the grass, so I would keep it to 1/2 inch deep or less, which may require many repeats over the months, to allow recovery between burials.
This filling and shaving, to be done well, should be done systematically. So before you start, get a couple cans of turf paint, maybe one color for the ups and another color for the downs, and carefully mark the areas and do some calculations to see if this project is even realistic, and you might see some areas that are way to deep and have to be filled deeply and resodded, other areas where you can move the high dirt to the low spots.
See also:How much dirt is needed to fill a dip?https://turfgrass.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000047.html
For leveling a lawn before sodding:https://turfgrass.com/planting/rake.html