New Home... New Yard... Help!

[Vidman35]

I just moved into a new home in a planned neighborhood community. The homebuilder put in Burmuda. We moved into the home in September. The grass was watered once a day until it turned for the winter. I have done nothing to the yard. It seems the builder did nothing lay down the grass and start watering. They didnt even clear the lot very well. I have found many large rocks and chunks of concrete under the grass. The entire yard is bumpy and uneven.

So my questions are:
1. How should I smooth and level out the yard?
2. What should I do for fertilizer and when?
3. What should I do for weed control?

I have never really had to be responsible for a lawn before. So I know nothing about it. I read how long to keep it and how often to cut it. But I know very little else. I want to have the best looking lawn on the block... but I don't want to spend hours doing it. I'll bet there is a balance? Is there a book... "Burmuda for Dummies." Can anyone help?

Scott

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

If you want to have the best on the block, you need to start out with the best foundation. You don't have it and it will cost you some to get it.

You need to get rid of the rocks or you'll forever be cursing them. This will entail digging up everything you now have between 4-6 inched down, and hand picking the rocks out. If you have the money, pay someone to do this. If not you can dig up the yard with a rented rototiller. I virtually NEVER suggest people use a rototiller for anything but this is an exception, because you are pretty much starting out with a new construction zone. If your rocks are smaller than 10 inches in diameter, the rototiller is probably the best way to dig them up. Another solution is a small tractor or dozer with close forks to pull up rocks and roots. But in the end, you'll be hand picking out the rocks.

After you get the rocks out to your satisfaction, you'll need to level the area and allow for drainage. This is best done by a professional 'finish grader.' These guys can do your yard in an hour, especially since you'll already have it dug up. Their objective is to get the water to drain away from all buildings and not pool up anywhere. When the grader is there, have him bring in at least 2 yards of compost per 1,000 square feet of area to dig into your soil. This is the perfect preparation to start. If you want you can add one bag each of dry molasses, greensand, and lava sand per 1,000 square feet, too.

After the yard is graded, then you're ready to plant grass again. You're going to have bermuda coming up there whether you plant another grass or not, so you may as well stick with it. Here's the Organic Bermuda 101 primer:

1. Only grow bermuda in full sun. If you try to grow it in any shade, you will not be happy. Never try to grow it near the north side of a building. That area should have ground covers, beds, or St Augustine grass (in the south). If there is a tree on the horizon, it's too close :lol: Don't try to plant bermuda seed too early in the season. Bermuda is a hot season grass. Seed usually doesn't do well until early June at the earliest.

2. Don't use any chemical herbicides, insecticides, nematicides, fungicides, or fertilizers anywhere in your yard. These things inevitably kill out the good microbes and insects in your yard. You want to attract good things and the following plan will do that for you at minimal time and expense. Once you have the good things in your yard, the bad things will 'tend' to stay away. In particular you want to encourage birds, toads, lizards, geckos, and wasps to your yard. Chemicals will keep these beneficial beasts out. The organic plan below will encourage them to come and stay. Concentrate on growing the best grass and forget about weeds completely for a full season. If you follow this plan, you should not have many weeds because the grass will be too dense to allow them in.

3. After your grass is established, water very infrequently but very deeply. In the heat of summer you should not need to water more than once a week, if that much. But when you water, do it for at least an hour to soak the ground as deep as possible. If you ever get runoff, stop watering right away and pick up again next week. In the winter months you will only need to water monthly (for an hour) to keep the bacteria and fungi in the soil happy. The grass will be dormant and not need it.

4. Get a reel type mower. If you want the best grass, this is the way to do it. Rotary mowers can't give you the best look. Set the mower to mow at something between 1/2 inch and 1 inch. Bermuda looks and feels best at that very low setting. You'll have to mow at least once a week during the growing season. And don't bag the clippings. Just let them decompose on the turf.

5. Fertilize with organic fertilizer. The commercial brand name fertilizers might be better, but you can buy the ingredients for those fertilizers at a feed store for about 1/6 the cost of the brand name bags. I use corn meal and alfalfa pellets at a rate of 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. If you want the best looking bermuda, do it every 60 days during the growing season starting about 3 weeks before the grass starts to grow.

Something else you could do to attract more birds is to put out a bird house, bird bath, and bird feeder.

If any of this is unclear or you want to try some different ways of achieving the same goal, write back and we'll see if we can clear things up.

[nina norman]

Hi David

This is some great advice you are giving. I am in a similar situation as Scott - they are building the house right now and we really have no say so over the yard until after we close on the house, hopefully in about three weeks. By that time the sod will have been laid and my husband has pretty much said that pulling up all that sod and tilling is out of the question. So, with that in mind how should I proceed? I mean, we will definitely be non-synthetic and we will be using bermuda and heat/drought tolerant plants. Assuming that the contractor is coming in and putting one or two inches of sandy loam on top of yuck - how and what should I add? I am guessing compost, humate, corn gluten meal and dry molasses - is this good?

Thanks a tons for your help,
Christina

[Gar]

Christina,
What is the possibility of telling the contractor to delay laying the sod for a week or two until you and hubby can get the soil amendents onto the yard? This way they will be under the grass and will feed the roots.
Just a thought.

[nina norman]

Hi Greg, thanks for the idea. I had actually mentioned this to the builder and they said that there is something to do with the way the VA does the loans and that the house has to be 100% improved. I even wanted to get some Boric Acid down on the concrete before they put in the cabinetry for roach and pest control and they said no way, not until we sign the papers can we do anything like that.

Oh well, one way or another I'll get the ammendments in the ground. Perhaps I could have a company come out and do a core aeration and soil test at the same time and then get the ammendments needed down that way. We shall see....

Have a great weekend!
Christina

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Hi Nina. I would simplify it a little more with just compost and ordinary corn meal. Compost at 1 cubic yard per 1,000 square feet and corn meal at 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Give it a few months and see if you want to add anything else.

When you have the topsoil or sand over yuck is when you really need the deep watering to penetrate the yuck and get the microbes working for you in there.

[Vidman35]

Wow... thanks so much for all the response and good advice. Yes digging up the yard is out for me too. So I gather from your helpful comments and some other reading I've done... I should use compost to fill in the rough spots.... and be very careful to rake it into the lawn real good and not smother the lawn? And then continue doing this over time?

Thanks a bunch!

Scott

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

You can rake it in but don't use a rake unless your back needs the exercise. Use a push broom instead. It does the same thing without the problem of catching the rake tines on the grass.

[bur4db]

Thanks for the earlier advice about new bermuda lawns. An additional question: You mention ignoring present weeds and just growing good grass....we have about an acre lot with thick Dallis grass. What should we do? Yard will need additional dirt and grading before starting lawn. Will tilling and adding compost be enough or should the Dallis be removed or killed first? Annual rye is now growing in area adjacent to the new house.
Terrell, TX.

[Pamzilla]

The trick with dalis grass is to mow, mow, mow. The grass won't survive if you continually cut off those long "hockey stick" shoots. Also digging them up works too but you probably need to mow anyway. Just do it more often for a season and they will die.

Also that whole bologna about not letting people prepare their lawns before sod is layed is c***. I wouldn't take it lying down. I'd make a huge pest of myself, not take it personally, and not back down. There is no reason why something can't be worked out. I'll bet there is someone who can bend the rules. Finding that person is the hard part. I hope I'm encouraging and not raising your blood pressure. I hate when rules get in the way of common sense. Good luck with all the new homes out there!

[Scott Fl]

actually turf will grow pretty good on junk! it just needs to be well drained. if you dont want to do what has been suggested already, then start a program of SANDING the lawn every 4 to 6 months,,,,,,bermuda is pretty harty so you can go pretty heavy with the sanding and it will make your future problems easier to control with good drainage!

[Enzyme11]

Scott Fl wrote: actually turf will grow pretty good on junk! it just needs to be well drained. if you dont want to do what has been suggested already, then start a program of SANDING the lawn every 4 to 6 months,,,,,,bermuda is pretty harty so you can go pretty heavy with the sanding and it will make your future problems easier to control with good drainage!

For Texas clay soils, adding ordinary sand is a really poor way to try to improve drainage but is a fairly good way to worsen the situation by making pseudo-concrete. Aeration and organic amendments, which could include some lava or granite sand, does work to improve drainage along with overall soil health. As in the discussion over on GG&L, improving drainage over a perched water table might require more effort.

[Scott Fl]

every texas golf course must be doing it wrong then? enzyme.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

I don't have anything authoritative to say about sand but golf courses are different creatures. They don't have normal soil to begin with. If they once did, they changed it before sodding or seeding.

Still, I'm reading more about using sand to stimulate new grass growth, improve density, and fill in bare spots. Nothing but sand is used. All I'm going to say is to keep your eyes out for other experiences people are having with periodic sanding in the turf. This is not adding inches of sand, just a dusting from what I am reading - and it is all anecdotal. Still it is all positive. Maybe the ones who used it and hardened up their soil don't want to talk about it :wink:

[Frisco]

My builder wouldn't let me do anything with my yard either. So, I went out there myself and raked out all the rocks and trash I could find. Once the workers see what you have done, at least in my case, they understand that you care about that and are more careful as to what they put in your yard. Once I moved in, I went to Home Depot and rented a.. well I don't know what they are called!... but a thing that flattens your yard. It's a big barrel that you fill with water and roll back and forth on your sod to compact it down. It worked well for me and it cost about $8 for a 1/2 day. After about a year, I dethatched my yard and it's looking pretty level now. I'm not saying what I did is the best answer, but it worked for me :)

Brian in Frisco