►►► Want to fix your lawn for the long haul but don't know where to start? I can help! Click here right now and get started today: turfmech.link/dont-know-where-to-start ◄◄◄
Hi there. This video is dear to my heart!!! I watched it a few times and here is my experience - - My mix was 1.5 yards of mason sand and 1.5 yards of screened top soil. The soil will settle so the sand gives it structure to prevent this. Yes it is best to have your mix DRY so it can be spread easily and BROOMED in. The grass must be cut to the crown of the blade so it is a stubble to broom around and cause the blade to stand up. Next you do not put piles of mix around the yard. Best is to have a garden cart that tips forward to dump. Move this in rows, and rake a bit out at a time and cast in front of the cart - - no height to it!!! Next, I RAKE it out to be sure it is not too deep and cast it around the grass blades. At this point it is sitting on top of the blades as well as between them where it is low. Finally you BROOM the blades to get the dirt knocked off the blades and settle the mix down to the canopy of the lawn ( around the crowns of the blades). You do not use straight sand for this as it will bake HARD and the temperature of it in the sun will get up over 150 degrees and burn the surrounding grass off. So have a good ratio of dirt in there. Next, WATER it in, and keep it moist for several days while the blades recover. If you are planning on over seeding - then I would suggest you water this dirt WELL to soften it up and get rid of any hard crust. Apply the seed and perhaps run a leaf rake thru it to "furrow" the gound - -not a broom or you will sweep it hard to the canopy. Finally mow at least at 3 inches tall to crowd out weeds and out compete them for space. Remember - the trick here is cast out low mix and rake it in and have as few areas where you do not see the blades. Sweep until the blades are poking thru and standing up as best as you can. Get the dirt off the blades!!! Bob S - Cleveland, OH
Thanks a lot Steve, glad you enjoyed it and was able to take something from it. I make mistakes all the time, best course of action is to always try and learn from them and from the process. The bigger kids learned a bit about that concept too as they watched the yellow grass slowly come back all April while I babied it along.
I seem too be one of those guys that only learns the hard way, when it comes to DIY projects. I have too royalty screw it up too see where I went wrong, but hey" its better to learn that way, then not learn at all, well" that's what I tell my wife anyway 😂 great video man 👌
You’re a perfectionist, I understand your pain. I’m stuck in the same brain state. Because it’s a “let me do this, or let me try that” and bam more and more problems, but it’s a learning lesson, kinda cause you’ll still want to do it another way. Hahahaha. Better than reading it out a book though.
An extremely helpful and well timed video Brian. I plan to level some low spots that are much worse than what you had. This helped to alter/improve my plan for sure.
I hope it goes well Ruben, gradual improvement is a great goal to have, I should have aimed for that instead of shooting for the moon in one shot. Thanks for watching!
I leveled the lot I bought next door to where I lived and had 9 tandem dump truck delivered and it was sandy loam I had delivered. Seeded it the end of September and spread grass seeded . The lot was really rough after doing tree removal and stump grinding. I built a 4 foot leveling rake and made a 8 foot wide drag I pulled behind my tractor. It was beautiful this spring.
made the same mistake for a client but luckily fixed up. it took about 10 extra hours of work fixing my mistake. taking off a large amount of the unsifted compost and mixing more sand in. it was also a draught time here in hawaii and i had to reseed. by far the biggest uh oh moment and best lesson i have had in the last several years doing this work
Extremely helpful to see actual results, especially mistakes, how you address problems, and honest evaluation of the results. Every part of this prepares all viewers much better than simply know-it-all beginning of project presentation and no actual results.
Oh god!! I’m not done watching and I’m already grateful….thanks for posting this….UA-cam is very seductive with these improvements and few show the failures… I’m still recovering from the last level…. Yea it’s only been a month or so but it matters…tell the truth
So glad you and others have appreciated this take on a tough job and the failures all of us can make. I try my best to show real life in my vids, it's what I appreciate in other presentations so I figure it's something a lot of people look for. Thanks for watching!
Thank you! I love your honesty. This video is awesome. I love the way your kids get involved and the way they interact with you. It’s obvious they adore their daddy! I have been trying to do some easy and some more complex landscaping around my house with a huge yard area. I make lots of mistakes but now I feel better about them and I won’t be so hard on myself!
I saw this Quotation as a Scrambled Puzzle at a Coney-I-lander this week that is relative to your video . . . “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life doing nothing.” George Bernard Shaw
@@TurfMechanic The Worst Mistake that we can make - Is to be too proud to admit when we have made a mistake. * I admire and respect people who > correct themselves (admit mistakes) > apologize and ask for forgiveness when they have wronged someone * BTW: GCI Turf (Pete) did a Lawn Leveling Video on April 9 > he hinted in the Comment Section of a Recent Video that ^ it didn’t work out * that a Follow-up Video will be forth-coming . . .
About a third through and every mistake is personal. Your comment section was also helpful. I've only had a lawn for the second season and the adventure continues.
I really enjoyed this video. Life is not perfect and neither are we. You had fun with the process and your kids at the same time. This in my opinion was a real relatable video. Thanks for putting it out and me teaching what not to do later this fall. I definitely would have done some of those no no’s.
Yep, that's what its about, having fun out in the yard with family, im glad it was real and relatable and a positive video. Also, early fall, yeah, much better time to do this 😅
Hello. I made the same mistake about 2 months ago. I raised the level of the lawn. I decided to do it in stages so as not to suffocate the grass and for that I used sand. Even the first few days I scratched these areas with the rake so the grass could show. However, I lost the grass below. I think the sand should have been less, maybe no more than 5-6mm. In the spring I will continue, but I will be more careful.
I've found watering leveling material (topsoil only, sand mix, etc.) to be very beneficial, but as you said, it takes continual agitation to let the grass grow through. I appreciate the insight into your experience, as I've had a ton of setbacks! Mainly, I'm trying to level ground that has high spots that are TOO high! Everything looks great, but I will rototill half of my lawn next year to bring it back down. Anyway, glad you posted the video. Subscribed!
Great video Brian and beautiful family. Lawn leveling is not as easy as it seems. There are plenty of opportunities to make mistakes. I just went through it. I put 3 yards of “screened topsoil” on my lawn that was full of crabgrass seeds and sticks and rocks. I was able to screen some of it myself. I went into it with the expectation that I will have to do it a couple of more times. To me it looks the same as before I did the leveling and now I have a bunch of bare spots because I don’t have any seed leftover. I should also mention that my lawn got covered with hundreds of maple seedlings after I put the seed down. Learned some good lessons.
Thanks JD, the kids and I did have fun the whole way so I'm glad it came together eventually. Now that the vid is out I'm seeing more and more small mistakes I made too, my spot leveling that I did a couple times last year were much more successful and I think I'll go back to doing that and recommending it to viewers over full lawn leveling jobs. Small spot repair gives you the opportunity to only fix the worst areas a little at a time over a season...that's more my style.
Great video! Cute family. You are so obviously blessed. It's live and learn with the landscaping. I'll make sure to do dry sand (mostly) when it's time to level or reshape. Appreciate the honesty and your place looks awesome!!!
Thank you for this great video. A lot of what you said doesn't apply to my project or maybe I should more aptly say that many of the things you said you did wrong actually are things I probably want to do because of the reasons you stated not to do them. The house I bought and moved into in June has a nice 23.5' x 40' rose garden that was neglected for over a year. Lots of holes were made by family members of the previous owner when they pulled out plants and objects they wanted to keep for themselves before the house was sold. I also created even more holes when I dug out buried pavers, bricks, and other rocks that hand shifted deep into the dirt. I also created a rather large rectangular fire pit in the center of the garden and added a few benches. The entrances are too small for my riding mower so I have been unsuccessfully using a reel mower and hedge trimmers inside the garden. I say unsuccessfully because of the holes and ruts listed above which is what led me to your video. I want to remove all the grass, level the ground as much as possible, create a border around the outer edges of the inside of the rose garden (where most the roses are), and plant some really nice (think golf course nice) grass on the inside of the garden. Right now, there's more weeds and mugwort growing in there than actual grass, so it will need reseeding regardless. All the things you said you did wrong because it kills the grass underneath would actually save me some extra work, but because I plan on reel cutting, I definitely don't want to use that soil you talked about. I bought a couple of bags of topsoil and all purpose sand for filling my holes.
I wish you had made this a few weeks ago. I tried this a couple of weeks back using the broom method with not the greatest results. I did overdo it with filling in with too much soil at one time. I’ll do this with less soil next time. Thanks for another great video, Brian.
Well I had wanted to release this 2-3 weeks back, oops, anyway overfilling low spots is the secret to killing grass for sure. I did level a couple low spots last year and did a proper process of filling in low spots a bit at a time every 10 days or so. That's the slow way to do it but it worked great both times.
I did small amounts of leveling in bare spots in hopes my St. Aug would begin spreading. It’s doing ok but it’s slow. An area I did plugs over is really doing well. Previous owner overseeded a problem area of the lawn with something that grows twice as fast and high as the SA, and has the strongest tap roots I’ve ever seen. There are also a lot of weeds in that section. I’m coming to really dislike that part of the lawn and will probably dig it out this winter and replace with SA plugs early spring.
Thanks so much for sharing! I could have made each of these mistakes myself as well and I really appreciate that you told the story of the challenges. I learned more in this video than all the ‘successful’ videos out there!
Oh my the vacation right at the time of major seasonal changes. It ends up stressing me out on vacation bc that's all I can think about is how I can't attend to what is going on. I empathize with you here. I saw so much here that was just fine, you being more of an expert than I of course. But certainly tweaking it would be good. Like you said, less soil. NIcely done sharing the mistakes. Cheers!
The only time I’ve had success is in the fall when I core aerated, leveled a little, and over seeded. It is so so important to have dry leveling material which is nearly impossible to find. I had to contact a company that services the golf industry because they keep all their material dry and under roof. Even the bagged material is wet so unless you have dry material it is a nightmare to try to push wet material
you are a truth teller :) dry is very hard to find especially if you use a blended material that includes compost or top soil. That's why so many people resort to play sand from big box hardware stores for spot leveling IMO. Last year I did a couple spot leveling projects that did just fine with blended soils but the trick was to do it a little teeny bit every week or so for a month and a half to bring soil levels up noticeably. Sept/Oct and maybe late May & June would probably be the best time for most places too.
I level by pulling an 8 foot long 4x6 like a plow horse. I water. Then I drive over it with my lawn tractor and bring in more dirt, leveling again and driving over it again. The last time i level it with the 4x6, the seed, and put peat moss on it. I drive over it again to try to ensure I have the seed in ground contact. Works well for me.
Thanks Mike, still some thin spots but I'm very glad I didn't force myself into a seeding project right in the middle of the main play yard! Good luck if you ever take this on. I'd probably not advise it for people that keep tall cut grass unless it's really uneven.
Quick question; it's early spring, I'm dealing with a VERY THATCHED lumpy lawn. I'm assuming I should start with a de-thatcher but I heard you say not to do it when it's too cold. I'm in Montreal, zone 5A, OMG, I LOVE THAT RAKE!
I just started trying to fix my lawn and fix dead areas and then realized it was filled with weed roots and rocks and even pieces of plastic. I even found an electric wire cover. I did a three foot by foot and a half by hand with like three hand tools and was covered in mud and sweating like crazy and beat after a few hours maybe more. Then I looked up hiring someone. I don't have 500 plus dollars to pay someone. I need to remove the dirt off my property and put new topsoil and grass seed. I want to do it myself but cheaper and with less killer labor. I don't mind hard work but I dont want it to kill me. Ugh!!!
Man I feel ya I just cleared off a 20 x 12 area beside a 🌴 and talk about a workout sheesh my arms n shoulders and back are sore as crap I can't imagine doing the whole yard. Now I know why people get mad if you walk on the grass
to me the problem with using top soil or some type of organic matter is it breaks down over time and then you have another low spot. Sand would be the best for leveling and a grout sand would be best.
One can turn these projects into a Career. I always joke " once the grass grows high - no one can detect unlevelness". My yards a small hill anyway. Thanks for your video!
Ohh man, that's the truth. I've said a handful of times on this channel that the taller your lawn is the easier it is to make it look good. The shorter it is the more you can see all the blemishes. I've been at 1.35" last year and this year I'm aiming for 1.75" mostly because I just don't want to play the constant game of keeping the lawn as flat as possible. It's always changing. So long as I can keep it pretty good and spot treat the worst spots each season then we'll be happy. I'm not trying to win awards here and I don't recommend my viewers try to win them either. LOL Thanks for watching and for your comments!
Anywhere you had old tree stumps, it's gonna shrink down years after grinding. Riding mowers following a fence or wall over time makes a slight rut in the ground. I probably buy like 12 bags of topsoil a year keeping mine level. I've noticed a few places today that I need to touch up. If it's an inch or less, most of the time you don't have to reseed.
Good point about the decay of underground stump mass, anyplace with lots of orga ic material will do this but yeah, a stump is huge and as it shrinks the lawn will sink for sure. I'm actually just starting to think about topping off some of the areas along my fence. I don't get heavy equipment depressions there but with my retaining wall some of the soil surly settles lower in the rock with every passing year.
I’m new to learning about lawn leveling, but wouldn’t it be simpler to till the entire yard to loosen the existing soil, and then just level it all at once in one go? Then plant new seed and add amendments as desired? Why is this not the common practice to tackle the whole problem? Would it ever be a good choice under certain circumstances?
I'm not sure what part of the country you're from. You did mention blue grass which is what I have It's early September and have been watching many video that contractdict each other. That is what type of sand and what're best mixtures. In Colorado Springs it is still quite warm and have made numerous trips to Lowes to pick up more sand, paver sand, topsoil and compost. I am 76years old and love gardening and now trying to fix bumpy and low areas in my yard. I'm mixing in a wheel barrow half paver sand,( told not to use play sand from one of the videos)
I'm happy it didn't turn out terrible but yes, I agree in the grand scheme of life it still looks pretty good and I'm still proud of the lawn I keep. Thanks for the pat on the back. :P
Great video! We can all learn from mistakes made. Good point on not to water the dirt in the low spots. Do you feel that using more of a sand mixture would have been more beneficial in the leveling process?
If I were renovating a lawn from scratch, I'd find a rental of a harley rake or use a drag mat until the surface is smooth before seeding. I realize there will be some uneven spots over time.
Great video. I learned it's probably not something I would try. I have one question. I'm in the Chicago area. Is it better to bag lawn trimmings or leave it on the grass and allow the mower to mulch it? Thank You in advance. See you next time.
I'll have to do a full video on this because there's a lot to say about it, much more than many people realize. For you in Chicago area you are probably running mostly kbg so I would bag in March & April, October & November because soil is cooler. For May through Sept id mulch for slow nutrient cycling, ground surface insulation, and water holding. But if you asked me to make an argument for any other combo I could because there's a lot of small factors at play. You've inspired a video. I will outline it out and publish it very soon to go deep into all of these small considerations. 👊 Thanks!
I've got a large low spot, 12 foot diameter and at least 3.5 inches deep in the center. I will be filling it in in the spring of 2025. I'll do it in one shot. No way am I dealing with this another year. The grass seed I use germinates quite fast and will completely fill in within 3 weeks if seeded in mid May. I don't care if it sinks an inch over a year, I'll just repeat the process. But as is mowing is a pain $75 in topsoil, $20 in seed and 2 hours labor will be well worth the cost, even if I do it twice, though at less cost the second time.
After watching this that the fact I just planted a lawn and now waiting to mow it and fill all the low spots . I think it would of been much faster and less frustrating and less labour intensive to just roll out some turf and work from their .
I'm currently replacing my lawn with clover. All the "mistakes" you're talking about in "killing the grass" I'm honestly taking notes but NOT in the way you're expecting. LOL
Some people who have the courage to say provocative things from the relevant comfort and safety of their mothers basements, have no common courtesy and have the courage of any nameless, faceless user name on a social media website. Here, this man has put together a video which is of interest to me and I have to endure puerile comments by smart asses who comment here. This content creator doesn’t need my help, but as a bystander I don’t have to put up with it either. Since the advent of the virtual commode that is social media, strangers have no problem saying what they would never say to someone else’s face, for many reasons. Grow up.
Lady’s and gentlemen please watch different videos and ignore this one. Sorry but this is terrible. Make sure to overseed and don’t ever level by putting down these chucks of material. Rocks won’t break down obviously and since I don’t have rocks in my yard why would I introduce rocks now. It’s sorta difficult to grow grass in rocks that is suffocating your grass. You may need to screen with 1/4 itch screener to achieve this. Build your own screen. And expect to put a lot more elbow grease when using a lawn leveler to work it into the low spots and watch videos on how to overseed properly. Last thing, use no more than 50% of sand to soil ratio to level with a depth that’s more than 1/2 itch deep or that area of grass will burn from the sun. Sand can produce a lot of heat on a sunny day.
I would use sand or a dry sandy loam since the clay underneath will hold moisture pretty good. I don't see a reason to wait long after aeration either. I'd do it as soon as I could to get some of that sand into the aeration holes before they close up on you.
do you recommend adding some top soil on yellow spots on Bermuda SOD that was just planted on March 16. Grass was looking great but then after week 4, start getting some yellow spots around the lawn. I already applied Scotts DiseaseX to my lawn last week and do see improvement. What do you think?
Rotary is a standard mower with a blade that spins parallel to the ground like a helicopter while a reel is like a roller rolling across the lawn cutting between the roller and a bed knife like scissors ✂️
You need to only purchase "screened" soil, sand, etc., from the dirt guy...Then, you won't get all those little rocks, etc... The reason for the lawn being slightly below grade at the Patio edge, is so the rainwater will drain Away from your house... I would never want to make the lawn area "Level" with my house grade... I don't want a future flood to allow the standing water to be at the level of my house foundation... I would always want to grade the lawn edge to anything, a little "Away" from my structure/s...From all sides...
I try to put the stick on the ground in multiple directions to find the best representation of the low spots in the lawn. Here's a newer video I made where I showed me using the stick again - my new house in this video: ua-cam.com/video/LZZKZSS-py8/v-deo.html
Thanks a lot Nathan, this leveling project seems like ancient history now even though it was just a few months back. Things are looking great now but I still have low spots near that patio. lol
I don't understand why all these UA-camr lawn people insist on using some kind of organic/compost/top soil for leveling. Golf courses have been using sand for centuries. Why do they all try to reinvent the wheel?
I know !!!! Golf courses use a lot of sand because it works... And as a bonus, the sand gets down into the soil and helps open up the soil structure so water and fertilizer get down to the roots of the grass better...
►►► Want to fix your lawn for the long haul but don't know where to start? I can help! Click here right now and get started today: turfmech.link/dont-know-where-to-start ◄◄◄
Hi there. This video is dear to my heart!!! I watched it a few times and here is my experience - -
My mix was 1.5 yards of mason sand and 1.5 yards of screened top soil. The soil will settle so the sand gives it structure to prevent this. Yes it is best to have your mix DRY so it can be spread easily and BROOMED in.
The grass must be cut to the crown of the blade so it is a stubble to broom around and cause the blade to stand up.
Next you do not put piles of mix around the yard. Best is to have a garden cart that tips forward to dump. Move this in rows, and rake a bit out at a time and cast in front of the cart - - no height to it!!!
Next, I RAKE it out to be sure it is not too deep and cast it around the grass blades. At this point it is sitting on top of the blades as well as between them where it is low.
Finally you BROOM the blades to get the dirt knocked off the blades and settle the mix down to the canopy of the lawn ( around the crowns of the blades).
You do not use straight sand for this as it will bake HARD and the temperature of it in the sun will get up over 150 degrees and burn the surrounding grass off. So have a good ratio of dirt in there.
Next, WATER it in, and keep it moist for several days while the blades recover.
If you are planning on over seeding - then I would suggest you water this dirt WELL to soften it up and get rid of any hard crust. Apply the seed and perhaps run a leaf rake thru it to "furrow" the gound - -not a broom or you will sweep it hard to the canopy.
Finally mow at least at 3 inches tall to crowd out weeds and out compete them for space.
Remember - the trick here is cast out low mix and rake it in and have as few areas where you do not see the blades. Sweep until the blades are poking thru and standing up as best as you can. Get the dirt off the blades!!!
Bob S - Cleveland, OH
I'm 74 and found your video very educational. Mistakes provide learning skills. Your children reminded me of my grandchildren. Loved them in the video
Thanks a lot Steve, glad you enjoyed it and was able to take something from it. I make mistakes all the time, best course of action is to always try and learn from them and from the process. The bigger kids learned a bit about that concept too as they watched the yellow grass slowly come back all April while I babied it along.
I seem too be one of those guys that only learns the hard way, when it comes to DIY projects. I have too royalty screw it up too see where I went wrong, but hey" its better to learn that way, then not learn at all, well" that's what I tell my wife anyway 😂 great video man 👌
And so when he does it the right way you know it’s the right way
You’re a perfectionist, I understand your pain. I’m stuck in the same brain state. Because it’s a “let me do this, or let me try that” and bam more and more problems, but it’s a learning lesson, kinda cause you’ll still want to do it another way. Hahahaha. Better than reading it out a book though.
Good on you man for showing the mistakes and growing pains not just a perfectly groomed lawn. The kids looked like they had fun with it too!
This man deserves his own TV show, 100 mil contract.
dude! YES! I've been quietly thinking that for years now. :D
Thanks for being open about mistakes and letting us learn from it too
An extremely helpful and well timed video Brian. I plan to level some low spots that are much worse than what you had. This helped to alter/improve my plan for sure.
I hope it goes well Ruben, gradual improvement is a great goal to have, I should have aimed for that instead of shooting for the moon in one shot. Thanks for watching!
P
I leveled the lot I bought next door to where I lived and had 9 tandem dump truck delivered and it was sandy loam I had delivered. Seeded it the end of September and spread grass seeded .
The lot was really rough after doing tree removal and stump grinding. I built a 4 foot leveling rake and made a 8 foot wide drag I pulled behind my tractor. It was beautiful this spring.
made the same mistake for a client but luckily fixed up. it took about 10 extra hours of work fixing my mistake. taking off a large amount of the unsifted compost and mixing more sand in. it was also a draught time here in hawaii and i had to reseed. by far the biggest uh oh moment and best lesson i have had in the last several years doing this work
So great that you came back to the video and showed us your mistakes and how to fix / avoid them.
Extremely helpful to see actual results, especially mistakes, how you address problems, and honest evaluation of the results. Every part of this prepares all viewers much better than simply know-it-all beginning of project presentation and no actual results.
Oh god!! I’m not done watching and I’m already grateful….thanks for posting this….UA-cam is very seductive with these improvements and few show the failures… I’m still recovering from the last level…. Yea it’s only been a month or so but it matters…tell the truth
So glad you and others have appreciated this take on a tough job and the failures all of us can make. I try my best to show real life in my vids, it's what I appreciate in other presentations so I figure it's something a lot of people look for. Thanks for watching!
Thank you! I love your honesty. This video is awesome. I love the way your kids get involved and the way they interact with you. It’s obvious they adore their daddy! I have been trying to do some easy and some more complex landscaping around my house with a huge yard area. I make lots of mistakes but now I feel better about them and I won’t be so hard on myself!
I saw this Quotation as a Scrambled Puzzle at a Coney-I-lander this week that is relative to your video . . .
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life doing nothing.”
George Bernard Shaw
That's well said, id much rather make mistakes and fail while trying, far more interesting than having not tried at all 🙂
@@TurfMechanic The Worst Mistake that we can make -
Is to be too proud to admit when we have made a mistake.
* I admire and respect people who
> correct themselves (admit mistakes)
> apologize and ask for forgiveness when they have wronged someone
* BTW: GCI Turf (Pete) did a Lawn Leveling Video on April 9
> he hinted in the Comment Section of a Recent Video that
^ it didn’t work out
* that a Follow-up Video will be forth-coming . . .
Thanks for this video. My lawn is struggling this year after doing well the last few years. Well stated lawn care is a marathon and not a sprint.
really useful video. I have a lot of spots that need leveling and have no idea where to start. helps a lot
I’m not even interested in the project anymore, What an amazing view you have ! Honestly
About a third through and every mistake is personal. Your comment section was also helpful. I've only had a lawn for the second season and the adventure continues.
Much respect for proving mistakes only lead to success.
I really enjoyed this video. Life is not perfect and neither are we. You had fun with the process and your kids at the same time. This in my opinion was a real relatable video. Thanks for putting it out and me teaching what not to do later this fall. I definitely would have done some of those no no’s.
Yep, that's what its about, having fun out in the yard with family, im glad it was real and relatable and a positive video. Also, early fall, yeah, much better time to do this 😅
Hello. I made the same mistake about 2 months ago. I raised the level of the lawn. I decided to do it in stages so as not to suffocate the grass and for that I used sand. Even the first few days I scratched these areas with the rake so the grass could show. However, I lost the grass below. I think the sand should have been less, maybe no more than 5-6mm. In the spring I will continue, but I will be more careful.
I've found watering leveling material (topsoil only, sand mix, etc.) to be very beneficial, but as you said, it takes continual agitation to let the grass grow through. I appreciate the insight into your experience, as I've had a ton of setbacks! Mainly, I'm trying to level ground that has high spots that are TOO high! Everything looks great, but I will rototill half of my lawn next year to bring it back down. Anyway, glad you posted the video. Subscribed!
Great video Brian and beautiful family. Lawn leveling is not as easy as it seems. There are plenty of opportunities to make mistakes. I just went through it. I put 3 yards of “screened topsoil” on my lawn that was full of crabgrass seeds and sticks and rocks. I was able to screen some of it myself. I went into it with the expectation that I will have to do it a couple of more times. To me it looks the same as before I did the leveling and now I have a bunch of bare spots because I don’t have any seed leftover. I should also mention that my lawn got covered with hundreds of maple seedlings after I put the seed down. Learned some good lessons.
Thanks JD, the kids and I did have fun the whole way so I'm glad it came together eventually. Now that the vid is out I'm seeing more and more small mistakes I made too, my spot leveling that I did a couple times last year were much more successful and I think I'll go back to doing that and recommending it to viewers over full lawn leveling jobs. Small spot repair gives you the opportunity to only fix the worst areas a little at a time over a season...that's more my style.
Great video! Cute family. You are so obviously blessed. It's live and learn with the landscaping. I'll make sure to do dry sand (mostly) when it's time to level or reshape. Appreciate the honesty and your place looks awesome!!!
My favourite part was the look on your face during your 2 week holiday away from your lawn.
The rest was also very helpful for my own plans
Thank you for this great video. A lot of what you said doesn't apply to my project or maybe I should more aptly say that many of the things you said you did wrong actually are things I probably want to do because of the reasons you stated not to do them.
The house I bought and moved into in June has a nice 23.5' x 40' rose garden that was neglected for over a year. Lots of holes were made by family members of the previous owner when they pulled out plants and objects they wanted to keep for themselves before the house was sold. I also created even more holes when I dug out buried pavers, bricks, and other rocks that hand shifted deep into the dirt. I also created a rather large rectangular fire pit in the center of the garden and added a few benches.
The entrances are too small for my riding mower so I have been unsuccessfully using a reel mower and hedge trimmers inside the garden. I say unsuccessfully because of the holes and ruts listed above which is what led me to your video.
I want to remove all the grass, level the ground as much as possible, create a border around the outer edges of the inside of the rose garden (where most the roses are), and plant some really nice (think golf course nice) grass on the inside of the garden. Right now, there's more weeds and mugwort growing in there than actual grass, so it will need reseeding regardless. All the things you said you did wrong because it kills the grass underneath would actually save me some extra work, but because I plan on reel cutting, I definitely don't want to use that soil you talked about. I bought a couple of bags of topsoil and all purpose sand for filling my holes.
I love this video! It is so refreshing to see some honesty and humility out there.
Agreed that mistakes (and how we can bounce back from them) are still a great learning environment.
I wish you had made this a few weeks ago. I tried this a couple of weeks back using the broom method with not the greatest results. I did overdo it with filling in with too much soil at one time. I’ll do this with less soil next time. Thanks for another great video, Brian.
Well I had wanted to release this 2-3 weeks back, oops, anyway overfilling low spots is the secret to killing grass for sure. I did level a couple low spots last year and did a proper process of filling in low spots a bit at a time every 10 days or so. That's the slow way to do it but it worked great both times.
@@TurfMechanic Impatience is was got me into trouble. I’m still learning.
The broom is the problem, get a level lawn, also watch Conner ward’s videos. His lawn is level and it actually looks good
I did small amounts of leveling in bare spots in hopes my St. Aug would begin spreading. It’s doing ok but it’s slow. An area I did plugs over is really doing well. Previous owner overseeded a problem area of the lawn with something that grows twice as fast and high as the SA, and has the strongest tap roots I’ve ever seen. There are also a lot of weeds in that section. I’m coming to really dislike that part of the lawn and will probably dig it out this winter and replace with SA plugs early spring.
Thanks so much for sharing! I could have made each of these mistakes myself as well and I really appreciate that you told the story of the challenges.
I learned more in this video than all the ‘successful’ videos out there!
Man I really miss the joy of having little kids around the house, the last 40 year's went by so fast, now that's all I do is work on the lawn.
Oh my the vacation right at the time of major seasonal changes. It ends up stressing me out on vacation bc that's all I can think about is how I can't attend to what is going on. I empathize with you here. I saw so much here that was just fine, you being more of an expert than I of course. But certainly tweaking it would be good. Like you said, less soil. NIcely done sharing the mistakes. Cheers!
The only time I’ve had success is in the fall when I core aerated, leveled a little, and over seeded. It is so so important to have dry leveling material which is nearly impossible to find.
I had to contact a company that services the golf industry because they keep all their material dry and under roof.
Even the bagged material is wet so unless you have dry material it is a nightmare to try to push wet material
you are a truth teller :) dry is very hard to find especially if you use a blended material that includes compost or top soil. That's why so many people resort to play sand from big box hardware stores for spot leveling IMO. Last year I did a couple spot leveling projects that did just fine with blended soils but the trick was to do it a little teeny bit every week or so for a month and a half to bring soil levels up noticeably. Sept/Oct and maybe late May & June would probably be the best time for most places too.
Not getting dirt for the whole yard will help me immensely. I did it before and it seemed like such a waste.
I level by pulling an 8 foot long 4x6 like a plow horse. I water. Then I drive over it with my lawn tractor and bring in more dirt, leveling again and driving over it again. The last time i level it with the 4x6, the seed, and put peat moss on it. I drive over it again to try to ensure I have the seed in ground contact. Works well for me.
Nice recovery! I've been wanting to do a good leveling for the last couple of years, but I just can't find the time! Will keep all of this in mind!
Thanks Mike, still some thin spots but I'm very glad I didn't force myself into a seeding project right in the middle of the main play yard! Good luck if you ever take this on. I'd probably not advise it for people that keep tall cut grass unless it's really uneven.
23:17 the face of a guy away from home worrying about his lawn...i get it man.
Lol
Taking vacation during the grow season. "Whats wrong babe?" "You wouldn't get it..."
Quick question; it's early spring, I'm dealing with a VERY THATCHED lumpy lawn. I'm assuming I should start with a de-thatcher but I heard you say not to do it when it's too cold. I'm in Montreal, zone 5A, OMG, I LOVE THAT RAKE!
I just started trying to fix my lawn and fix dead areas and then realized it was filled with weed roots and rocks and even pieces of plastic. I even found an electric wire cover. I did a three foot by foot and a half by hand with like three hand tools and was covered in mud and sweating like crazy and beat after a few hours maybe more. Then I looked up hiring someone. I don't have 500 plus dollars to pay someone. I need to remove the dirt off my property and put new topsoil and grass seed. I want to do it myself but cheaper and with less killer labor. I don't mind hard work but I dont want it to kill me. Ugh!!!
Man I feel ya I just cleared off a 20 x 12 area beside a 🌴 and talk about a workout sheesh my arms n shoulders and back are sore as crap I can't imagine doing the whole yard. Now I know why people get mad if you walk on the grass
Hahaha - of course you get mad - maybe not by walking but driving.
Be tough! Don’t give up! Greetings from Poland! 👍🏻
What a informational and helpful video! Thanks!
to me the problem with using top soil or some type of organic matter is it breaks down over time and then you have another low spot. Sand would be the best for leveling and a grout sand would be best.
One can turn these projects into a Career. I always joke " once the grass grows high - no one can detect unlevelness". My yards a small hill anyway. Thanks for your video!
Ohh man, that's the truth. I've said a handful of times on this channel that the taller your lawn is the easier it is to make it look good. The shorter it is the more you can see all the blemishes. I've been at 1.35" last year and this year I'm aiming for 1.75" mostly because I just don't want to play the constant game of keeping the lawn as flat as possible. It's always changing. So long as I can keep it pretty good and spot treat the worst spots each season then we'll be happy. I'm not trying to win awards here and I don't recommend my viewers try to win them either. LOL Thanks for watching and for your comments!
Anywhere you had old tree stumps, it's gonna shrink down years after grinding. Riding mowers following a fence or wall over time makes a slight rut in the ground. I probably buy like 12 bags of topsoil a year keeping mine level. I've noticed a few places today that I need to touch up. If it's an inch or less, most of the time you don't have to reseed.
Good point about the decay of underground stump mass, anyplace with lots of orga ic material will do this but yeah, a stump is huge and as it shrinks the lawn will sink for sure. I'm actually just starting to think about topping off some of the areas along my fence. I don't get heavy equipment depressions there but with my retaining wall some of the soil surly settles lower in the rock with every passing year.
Thanks for sharing, definitely true that you learn the most from mistakes and will help me with similar process.
Awesome video, always try to show everything, mistakes as well as success, both are helpful I think.
you learn from mistakes. A great, informal video.
I’m new to learning about lawn leveling, but wouldn’t it be simpler to till the entire yard to loosen the existing soil, and then just level it all at once in one go? Then plant new seed and add amendments as desired? Why is this not the common practice to tackle the whole problem? Would it ever be a good choice under certain circumstances?
Thumbs up for keepin it real!
Top dressing really is an art form of labor-and-error lol.
Crikey that was a total disaster - thanks for being brave enough to share.
I agree mistake videos are great for learning and interesting. Thank you.
I'm not sure what part of the country you're from. You did mention blue grass which is what I have
It's early September and have been watching many video that contractdict each other. That is what type of sand and what're best mixtures. In Colorado Springs it is still quite warm and have made numerous trips to Lowes to pick up more sand, paver sand, topsoil and compost. I am 76years old and love gardening and now trying to fix bumpy and low areas in my yard. I'm mixing in a wheel barrow half paver sand,( told not to use play sand from one of the videos)
Mistakes are great learning experiences! Thanks for the video
Thank you Jake, that's how we learn from birth until death through trial and error. Always love seeing you in the comments btw!
I made my own 36" leveling rake with aluminum angle for about $30
I wanted to replace my lawn with native ground cover, would I go about leveling the lawn this same way?
Nice. What's the delivery rate on them?
Turned out looking pretty good!
I'm happy it didn't turn out terrible but yes, I agree in the grand scheme of life it still looks pretty good and I'm still proud of the lawn I keep. Thanks for the pat on the back. :P
Great video! We can all learn from mistakes made. Good point on not to water the dirt in the low spots. Do you feel that using more of a sand mixture would have been more beneficial in the leveling process?
Great video. I have St Aug sod that was laid on top of river sand and not growing. Is it ok to level it out with Top Soil? Thanks.
If I were renovating a lawn from scratch, I'd find a rental of a harley rake or use a drag mat until the surface is smooth before seeding. I realize there will be some uneven spots over time.
Great video. I learned it's probably not something I would try. I have one question. I'm in the Chicago area. Is it better to bag lawn trimmings or leave it on the grass and allow the mower to mulch it? Thank You in advance. See you next time.
I'll have to do a full video on this because there's a lot to say about it, much more than many people realize. For you in Chicago area you are probably running mostly kbg so I would bag in March & April, October & November because soil is cooler. For May through Sept id mulch for slow nutrient cycling, ground surface insulation, and water holding. But if you asked me to make an argument for any other combo I could because there's a lot of small factors at play. You've inspired a video. I will outline it out and publish it very soon to go deep into all of these small considerations. 👊 Thanks!
I've got a large low spot, 12 foot diameter and at least 3.5 inches deep in the center. I will be filling it in in the spring of 2025. I'll do it in one shot. No way am I dealing with this another year. The grass seed I use germinates quite fast and will completely fill in within 3 weeks if seeded in mid May. I don't care if it sinks an inch over a year, I'll just repeat the process. But as is mowing is a pain $75 in topsoil, $20 in seed and 2 hours labor will be well worth the cost, even if I do it twice, though at less cost the second time.
After watching this that the fact I just planted a lawn and now waiting to mow it and fill all the low spots . I think it would of been much faster and less frustrating and less labour intensive
to just roll out some turf and work from their .
I'm currently replacing my lawn with clover. All the "mistakes" you're talking about in "killing the grass" I'm honestly taking notes but NOT in the way you're expecting. LOL
Thx for sharing, exactly what I needed
Im going to level my lawn.
Some people who have the courage to say provocative things from the relevant comfort and safety of their mothers basements, have no common courtesy and have the courage of any nameless, faceless user name on a social media website. Here, this man has put together a video which is of interest to me and I have to endure puerile comments by smart asses who comment here. This content creator doesn’t need my help, but as a bystander I don’t have to put up with it either. Since the advent of the virtual commode that is social media, strangers have no problem saying what they would never say to someone else’s face, for many reasons. Grow up.
Where are you from? What region? Love the video. Appreciate your humbleness.
If this work had been seeded after levelling the first time would it have worked out ok?
Ah life. Live, make mistakes, learn, live what you learned. Most important, have fun!
That's the secret to having a great life! 😃
Your daughter is very cute, thank you for all the great info as usual Brian!
Your a wise man 👍
Just add seed next time.
Lady’s and gentlemen please watch different videos and ignore this one. Sorry but this is terrible. Make sure to overseed and don’t ever level by putting down these chucks of material. Rocks won’t break down obviously and since I don’t have rocks in my yard why would I introduce rocks now. It’s sorta difficult to grow grass in rocks that is suffocating your grass.
You may need to screen with 1/4 itch screener to achieve this. Build your own screen.
And expect to put a lot more elbow grease when using a lawn leveler to work it into the low spots and watch videos on how to overseed properly.
Last thing, use no more than 50% of sand to soil ratio to level with a depth that’s more than 1/2 itch deep or that area of grass will burn from the sun. Sand can produce a lot of heat on a sunny day.
Great video... I always like "learn from my mistakes" video. But, your kids stole the show! Lol
The kids usually steal the show around here, LOL. Whenever I do something crazy they always come out of the woodwork. :D
You should have used sharp sand with a little bit of soil mixed in. You dressed the lawn with very Clay like soil
Very usefull video. Good job. At 28:55 it looks like the lawn is radioactive😅
For a clay soil, do you level with sand or top soil. Also how many days after aeration you can do it in the fall
I would use sand or a dry sandy loam since the clay underneath will hold moisture pretty good. I don't see a reason to wait long after aeration either. I'd do it as soon as I could to get some of that sand into the aeration holes before they close up on you.
is this possible with a pitched lawn?
do you recommend adding some top soil on yellow spots on Bermuda SOD that was just planted on March 16. Grass was looking great but then after week 4, start getting some yellow spots around the lawn. I already applied Scotts DiseaseX to my lawn last week and do see improvement. What do you think?
What did you do? How did it turn out?
Love your honesty, subscribed!
Thank you for posting this 😀
Glad you liked it! 😃
Your yard is already flat and perfect. Ugh I can't find a video where a yard looks like mine
Love it! Thx for posting.
Kudos for showing mistakes bro
im glad u made this video
Thanks a lot KD; now that it's out I'm glad I did too. This was fun for me and the kids and I learned a lot about rushing this process.
Thanks for the vid… what’s the difference between a real mower and a rotary mower?
(Asking for a rookie friend😳)
Rotary is a standard mower with a blade that spins parallel to the ground like a helicopter while a reel is like a roller rolling across the lawn cutting between the roller and a bed knife like scissors ✂️
Thank you for sharing this
Looks like you’re in Utah. And second winter is a local term here in Utah as well. Lol.
Great video!
Thanks Mathew, it was a journey video that didn't end as bad as it could have 😅 I'm glad a lot of people like yourself ended up enjoying it
Thank you very much for this.
You need to only purchase "screened" soil, sand, etc., from the dirt guy...Then, you won't get all those little rocks, etc... The reason for the lawn being slightly below grade at the Patio edge, is so the rainwater will drain Away from your house... I would never want to make the lawn area "Level" with my house grade... I don't want a future flood to allow the standing water to be at the level of my house foundation... I would always want to grade the lawn edge to anything, a little "Away" from my structure/s...From all sides...
Do u put the stick in one direction only or do u do both ways
I try to put the stick on the ground in multiple directions to find the best representation of the low spots in the lawn. Here's a newer video I made where I showed me using the stick again - my new house in this video: ua-cam.com/video/LZZKZSS-py8/v-deo.html
Good on ya bro
Great video.
Thanks a lot Nathan, this leveling project seems like ancient history now even though it was just a few months back. Things are looking great now but I still have low spots near that patio. lol
Why seed over when you can seed under the topsoil😊
I don't understand why all these UA-camr lawn people insist on using some kind of organic/compost/top soil for leveling.
Golf courses have been using sand for centuries. Why do they all try to reinvent the wheel?
I know !!!! Golf courses use a lot of sand because it works... And as a bonus, the sand gets down into the soil and helps open up the soil structure so water and fertilizer get down to the roots of the grass better...
@@frandanco6289 Oh for sure
26:32 "what do you think"
Me: "WHAT ARE THOOOOOSE!"
Awesome video
Thanks soo much, it's daunting sometimes to show errors, worth it though I think.