Start a new yard

September 3, 2005 2:52 AM

My back yard sucks. I need help growing some grass back there.

I moved into this house 4 years ago. When I moved in, they contractor said that the back yard was lightly seeded with "highway grass" to stop erosion. It was not designed to be an actual yard.

I live in the Charleston, SC area. My dirt has large amounts of clay. I grew up in upstate NY where the dirt was a rich dark color. Here, it's a very light brown. It doesn't look very good.

Well, it's been 4 years and I am just now getting around to putting a yard back there. But I don't know how to do it. I took some squares of centipede grass and put it level in the dirt back there and that's kind of working. I aerated a section of the yard and threw down some zoysia grass seed and that kind of worked but not really because that area is all dead right now (I don't know if I killed it with some weed killer stuff or what happened over there).

Basically, I need some advice. Should I till the whole works under and start over? Seed or plugs or sod? What works?

posted by ajpresto to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

First off, you'll need to prepare the ground (aha! my soil science degree pays off!).

You might want to get your soil tested first. You basically grab a bunch from your backyard into a bucket and take it to your local soil conservation service offices for a $5 check. They usually deal with farmers but they help homeowners too. This will give you an idea of what exactly your soil might need, but is optional.

If you do a soil check and realize the clay content is super high, you might want to spread gypsum to break it up. There's a basic chemical reaction I could describe here but basically it makes the clay not stick to each other just a little bit.

The most important thing you should do, no matter what, is add organic matter. You said the soil is light in color, and you are used to dark, rich soil. Dark colors in soil are due to organic matter and more organic matter means lots of good things (better water retention, more nutrients, better soil structure). Find your local landscape supply (could be a county green waste place) and get a big ass order of compost (black gold!) that is enough to cover your entire backyard by a few inches.

Rent a tiller, and work the compost into the top foot of soil, then rent a lawn roller (big metal steamroller type thing you fill with water for weight and push around) to lightly compact and level your freshly tilled earth.

Now you've got a perfect level growing surface to work with, and for the quick solution I'd suggest sod, though if you are patient and you have a sprinkler system setup, you could spread seed, water it frequently for 2-3 weeks and grow your own lawn, but that's a pain in the ass.

That's my take on it, but be sure to google around for how to grow a lawn -- you'll find hundreds of guides to it.
posted by mathowie at 4:48 AM on September 3, 2005

IANALandscaper, but I live in the same part of the country and feel your pain. I think you may have to bring in topsoil, about 4 inches' worth of good rich organic stuff. They'll have to till up what you've got now, put thetopsoil over it, then seed. But I think you are supposed to wait a few weeks since we're still in the 90s most days.

We had zoysia in a previous house and while we liked the drought-resistance and slow growth, it goes brown in the winter which is pretty ugly. Many zoysia owners overseed in the fall with ryegrass.
posted by SashaPT at 4:52 AM on September 3, 2005

You could try a compost heap. I've got a bit at the back of my yard I didn't want to do anything with when I moved in 6 years ago. It's mostly rubble. Not soil at all. So I stuck a wooden frame on it (open bottomed) and threw all my waste vegetable matter on it. Threw away the frame a while back, and now it's growing stuff like crazy. Compost takes about a year to turn into useful stuff but hey, it's free.
posted by handee at 5:16 AM on September 3, 2005

mathowie - Here's the big question: Bag or mulch?

I have this idea that bagging and removing grass clippings robs the soil of nutrients that mulching the clippings would put back in. I understand that mulching can create thatch, but that's not much of a problem with my sparse new lawn. Is there any other reason not to mulch?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:26 AM on September 3, 2005

The Henry Doubleday Research Association is the largest organic growing association in Europe. It used to have a guide on something they called "Grass Boarding" which involves layering recycled cardboard and grass clippings to compost them. A compost heap with too many grass clippings in it tends to go anaerobic and sour.
posted by hardcode at 8:32 AM on September 3, 2005

Here's a similar question that might help...
posted by nitsuj at 10:08 AM on September 3, 2005

Link fixed.
posted by nitsuj at 10:09 AM on September 3, 2005