When I’ve redone lawns like you did, rather than new top soil, I learned to add chicken (pigeon if you can get it) manure, cow manure, peat moss, and a grass seed fertilizer mix ... rototiller it into the soil along with a portion of the new seed (as you did). Them tamped it down to settle the dirt and level out the lumps. Then add the rest of the seed mixed with peat moss (rather than straw) on top. Lawns have always boomed back better than using sod (all sod does is provide instant lawn). Learned this from my Italian Great Uncle who was a professional gardener/small farmer. Soil prep like this also works very well with sodding, roots take hold faster & deeper.
One suggestion: spread your bags of soil all over the areas where you will be tilling first, that way you don't have to cover the same areas twice with the tiller.
THIS IS the video I needed today. I've watched a dozen videos that go way overboard for what I need. Just a simple retouch of my current sad lawn lol. My son was in a terrible motorcycle accident last spring and my yard got neglected & went to hell. Trying this Monday- you are the best.
I remember laying down new dirt like that, placing the seeds all over, and then laying a light inch or less of soil on top of the seeds to finish it all off. Grass came in soooo beautifully
When spreading seed, its important to walk around with the spreader haphazardly in hopes you won’t have bare spots… even though you used 2x the seed necessary.
What about using the tiller to get the seed under ground. I am toying with doing this... but wanted to be sure the seed gets down in there. Great video!!!
I need to do the same thing. I have dead sod. But I also basically have a destroyed and trenched yard from all the equipment brought in when a free fell. I really probably need to get the rest of the tree out, but I need to even out my lawn and start over
Thinking about doing this. I have about 800sqft of mixed bare patch and dead sods. Main thing I’m wondering is.. will the Honda rototiller fit in the back of a Nissan Rogue...? I feel like it would but I need to go to HDepot and look at one in person I think! Great video
Unfortunately we moved! I haven't been able to make any videos for a while. When we left the grass was coming in nicely. Sorry there is nothing for me to show though.
I'm getting ready to redo my lawn. When I tried seeding last year apparently I didn't do It right because nothing happened. The weeds have stopped tho. I'll try to to it myself but it'll be done manually. I'd really love to have a nice lawn for a change. I'm in Los Angeles.
Hi there. I noticed that you didn't remove the tilled up grass sod. I'm in a predicament with mine as I've tilled the ground where the grass is but left with big chunks of grass sod. Any suggestions?
Hey, a great video here. My lawn care guys just seemed to fail bringing back new life to my lawn doing the usual stuff. Your using a rototiller is the way to go. I can see that you are ragging up all dead sod and weeds, then improve the soil by mixing new mix to it, reseeding..... this brings in a whole new world for the lawn. However, I am thinking would it help if you remove all the unwanted roots and stuff after tilling the lawn so weeds are less likely to come back and the dead roots won't decay to "poison" the soil? Actually I am going to follow your footsteps here! From Toronto.
Any dead foliage will be really good natural compost. That tiller will chop it up enough to totally kill any existing weeds. New weeds will be dormant or old seeds that got tilled up to the top where water and sun will make the grow. It’s totally unavoidable unless you put a pre emergent
Here is a dumb question: we live in a rental and our dogs have destroyed the backyard. I would like to Rototill it but I worry about hitting the Sprinkler lines. How deep are lines or does each house vary?
Renting a tiller seemed to do great for leveling, but the end result in your final shot is riddled with weeds. Overseeding will likely help but it feels like a couple of steps are missing here.
The dumbest thing you'll ever do is spread seed My St Augustine came back after it was patchy but I spread seed and every one of those seed bags have weeds in them My St Augustine is currently being choked out by the crabgrass seeds that were in that bag crabgrass has taken over
I have a area where there are bad weeds. Its pretty stalky actually mower struggling to cut it down. I was considering tilling it but. Its literally 60sqft i just bought a sunjoe thacher/scarifier thinking I should go that route first the. Over seed before ruining the ground.
I can't find a good rear tine tiller for my business I have some people waiting to redo their yards up north but the market for rear tine tillers right now is out of stock. I guess I'll keep looking
We've never had good luck with grass from seed in Colorado, not enough rain and humidity since it's a semi desert climate, we had better luck with winter rye grass seeds which we planted to choke out the weeds and if you turn it over it's a good source of nutrients and will help the soil. I wouldn't use it as a lawn since it turns brown in the summer. I'm thinking were going to go with SOD since it's already had a good start. If we were in someplace like IOWA seed would work.
Would it not be easier just to spray all the grass and kill it off after you scalp the yard way down. Then you could power rake or dethatch, Then top dress And seed?
Awesome video. My front yard is a mess and I think this is something I need to do. Should I wait for spring next year to do this or is this something I can while we still have some summer left? I live in Northeast Ohio FYI so it starts to get cold at the end of October.
Thanks for the video, bro. Im in Colorado too (Lakewood). We resodded our backyard, since we have dogs. Couldn’t get the seed to take. But I plan on using this method in our front yard next spring. I have a massive bag of pure Kentucky Bluegrass that Im going to use. Never really thought about using a tiller, but it seems like that’s the way to go; especially after watching the guys do our backyard sod. Really helped to level the whole yard too.
You probably should have added top soil and fertilized it, plus you left the soil very lumpy grass doesn't really like to grow in that. And i am not sure if you rolled it ..? but grass has to have good grass to soil contact
Hi, yea we added some soil to the top that was fertilized. The soil was kinda lumpy and we didnt roll it out at all. Looking back that would have been a good idea. The grass has grown back in nicely otherwise. So glad the dead sod layers are gone.