Lawn Rebuild Project

[Houdini]

I was going to post in another thread by a newbie, but I didn't want to thread jack.

I just bought my first house. Huge lawn in the back. Problem is that it's not much of a lawn and needs major work. My lot is .267 of a acre, so my back lawn in probably. .1875 of an acre.

Issues:
1.Its probably only 10% any sort of grass. the rest is Covers, Moss, dandelions, thistles, and other nasty weeds.

2. The ground is very un even. High spots and lows. When I mow I have to set the blade kind of high to avoid topping the high spots, which means the low spots hardly get mowed. Some places as much as a 4" delta between them.

3. Most of the ground is "level" with the exception that the last 6' twords the back fence from the house the elevation starts to go up. I'd idealy like that to be level. Part of the yard is raised 3'. Which again, I'm ok with, I just want to get the place all on the same page so I think the best thing to do would be to continue the raised area around the rest of th yard.

4.there is an existing watering system, but I can't find the heads and its not hooked up. I'd like to either remove it, or get it working.

5. it's not great soil. It seams very Hard and clay like. some places the former owners put Lava rock and I think it just sank or was burried to get rid of it.

6. One are of the yard is not very compacted at all. Loose and muddy when it rains. I has very little ground cover at all. mostly weeds. I'd like to get that area fixed too.

So. Help me out. I've already heard about using herbasides like round up to kill the existing "lawn" and replant later, I've heard rent a sod cutter, use weed controll and replant later. But what about just not watering this summer and letting it die and then fixing the ground this summer and replanting seed this winter.

So here are some pics for your reference. Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading.

[img]https://i526.photobucket.com/albums/cc343/mwillette2006/2012-03-15_1959.png[/img]

[img]https://i526.photobucket.com/albums/cc343/mwillette2006/Yard3.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i526.photobucket.com/albums/cc343/mwillette2006/Yard2.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i526.photobucket.com/albums/cc343/mwillette2006/Yard1.jpg[/img]

[tomf]

If you do not water much of the lawn will come back any ways. If you have weeds the weed seed will make new weeds. If you have a lot of clay you can add sand to it, you can also add compost to the soil. Plant a new lawn and keep it mowed and this will help keep the weeds down. There are lots of posts in this the lawn forum you should read.

[wsommariva]

I like to kill weeds with a round up type product. Concentrated is cheaper. Kills grass also but some weeds killers I find ineffective. You need to amend your soil. I always add topsoil and compost. A little Peat moss on hills or on compacted soil. Seed starter fert/lime if needed. A good lawn prevents lots of problems.