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Possible Duplicate:
Can my lawn be saved or is it time to dig it up and re-sod?

I have two problems that I am trying to knock out with the least amount of work possible.

The first problem is I have bluegrass taking over my yard. It started out this season in small patches and has managed to cover most of the back yard now.

The second problem is the unevenness of the yard. There are small holes from a dog digging, medium hills from a sandbox that was removed, and large grading that was never leveled when the house was built.

I thought I might be able to kill two birds with one stone. My thought is to kill off the current yard (with something like roundup), get top soil brought in and spread across the yard, then seed with new grass.

Is there anything that I am looking over here that might be an easier plan of attack? If I do use something like round up, is there any standard time I would need to wait before replanting?

Details: I am in zone 6B. Primarily people have Fescue (which is what I currently have) but a few do have Bermuda.

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Kellenjb
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1 Answers1

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Rather than killing the grass with poison, you really want to remove it mechanically. A sod cutter would be one way. Scraping it off via a skid-steer would be another.

At that point, get the soil tested, find out what would the best amendements would be, and then mix that in with a new layer of topsoil, till it, rake it and then you can put your new grass down.

PS Personally, I've always preferred blue grass over fescue, but maybe that's a regional thing.

DA.
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  • This answer from Mike Perry goes into more detail than I could imagine http://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/2012/can-my-lawn-be-saved-or-is-it-time-to-dig-it-up-and-re-sod – kevinskio May 28 '12 at 12:13
  • What would be the advantages of mechanically removing it? The reason I have been hesitant to go this route is I have had a hard time find anyone near me who rents a cod cutter. As far as the type of grass, I hate the look of the seed heads. – Kellenjb May 28 '12 at 20:31
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    Grass turf creates a thick matt of roots. This matt needs to be removed for the new grass to root properly. Tilling can work, but takes a whole lot of work compared to stripping off what you have. – DA. May 28 '12 at 21:06