How to TOP DRESS your lawn to make a FLAT LEVEL surface 

This is the most “dad” thing I every seen. Good on you pops!!!

Amazing yard!! As a landscaping company owner who spends half my week on a zero turn, my sore back thanks you for your efforts in making your yard as smooth as humanly possible and also for this lawn leveling video and all the people who learned how to do this!!

I admire his moxie. That’s a ton of work, but he likes what he’s doing. He sounds satisfied.

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve come back to watch this video… it’s such a satisfying video. Connor, your lawn looked amazing and I can’t wait to see this new renovation pay off for you!

Everyone (well some then) making fun of this guy, seems like an ordinary working-class guy who's taking pride to make his property he's worked so hard for, the best he can.

Really nice video. Thanks. I am definitely going to use that technique on my 1 acre bumpy lawn; I keep spilling my beer whilst mowing, and that has to stop.

I did this to my lawn about 12 years ago and my neighbors thought I was crazy until I explained what it was for and then they all wanted to do it but were too lazy.

great video - I definitely need to do this in my backyard. My lawn is anything but smooth & level. I'm somewhat disabled and less than smooth is difficult to walk on. My son will be thrilled to have a project! And you good folks that say his lawn was level to begin with, this is his 4th year doing this. THAT'S why it looks so good.

Nice job. To all the skeptics out there watching this, this is done on athletic fields all the time. Many soccer fields are built with sand drains to keep them from getting muddy too

I would do this but it is too hard working around the old sofas and car parts in my lawn.

Cant believe I'm taking lawn advice from a dude that not only owns 2 flamingo t-shirts... he actually wears them ! :) Good video, educational and entertaining.

You have some serious dedication for your lawn. I actually really need to do this to my yard which is about 1/2 acre. Dumped a couple truck loads of topsoil last spring, still need more. A lot more! You now have me wondering if I should use sand. I don't have the 4 wheeler though, so spreading is extremely tedious. Great job man and kudos to making the video.

My dad and I did this when I was a kid, 40 years ago. We killed 90% of our lawn... I can still hear our old man neighbor telling my dad, "youre gonna kill your lawn, Dan"... and he did...

When I saw the second truck, I fell off my chair laughing!!!!

Hats off to you brother. Never seen anyone put as much work in a lawn that was a homeowner.

Great work Connor, it is nice to see someone that takes great pride in their hard work. If you ever sell your house your lawn will add a few thousand dollars to the value of your property and will definitely have appeal to prospective house buyers. The reward of all this hard work is ultimately it makes the beer taste much better after the effort put in at the end of the day. Take care.

I was thinking about doing this to my yard, but since I got physically tired watching you do it, I think I'll pass.

Your yard looks great. Glad to see you are taking pride and the time to make an improvement progressively. Try not to let the negative comments discourage ya. Good job!

Very helpful video. I took the advice to put sand on my lawn from a landscape guy. He failed to mention how important it was to work the sand into the turf. I ended up killing parts of my lawn. It eventually recovered with good drainage. Thanks for the helpful DIY device ideas and process details.

My grandpa used to drag a box spring behind the 4 wheeler. I hate my bumpy lawn and this is a good idea!

To broom the sand in we use a piece of artificial grass and tow it behind a 4 wheeler. It is a neat design and it works really well. Just a rope to a 2x4 and a 2x4 piece of wood atached to the piece of artificial grass.

YOU FREAK!! I love it lol. Awesome job my man! Thanks for the ideas. I have a new lawn at my camp that just perturbs the crap out of me because it has low holes in it that holds fish ponds when it rains. Thats got to be fixed this spring when my Bermuda grass comes out. Thanks again my fellow OCD lawn keeping enthusiast!! May your yard forever be green, flat as a pancake and your lawn mower start on the first spin of the engine.

I spread 45 yards of recycled asphalt millings and 50 yards of loam in April. All by hand. Was a boat load of fun.

There’s not many people that take pride in their yard. I personally look at a well kept lawn just as hard as I look at a nicely restored vehicle. Great work and thanks for the continued tips for those of us that try to keep our lawns looking nice and our neighbors feeling envious.

This dude is awesome. I have a ton of respect for his work ethic and commitment to excellence

I can't wait for the day that someone donates a top dressing machine to you. I can already see the smile on your face.

I showed this video to my wife so that in the future, she would let me do anything to my yard. If this guy can sweep his grass flat, then nothing I have done re: yard maintenance can be considered excessive. Thanks flat-grass guy!

You are the type of neighbor I wish I had. Thanks for sharing your work.

The wife is lucky to have a husband who takes care of the lawn and flowers/trees.

Fantastic.. finally i have found my next place to do drifting with my monstertruck.

I have a field about 3 acres in size that desperately needs this leveling approach. After each rain, you can see all the low areas, by just look for the puddles. Job well done. Thanks for the advice.

Hard work = good outcome. Thanks for the video, it gave me some ideas.

Keep at it and your lawn will be higher than the slab of your house and then all the water will drain INTO your house. Where I'm at, we want our lawns to slope down to the street with our slabs at least 3-4 ft higher than the street level. We had 60" of rain over a couple of days and the water didn't come even close to my house. Some people who lived in subdivisions whose slabs were close to street level did end up being flooded though.

Hey, I loved your rake! And the idea of adding the brooms is really cool! I used to work for the Parks Dept. in Florida, and we would sod the baseball fields and cover them with sand. We used a rake similar to yours, but after the rake, we used a piece of chainlink fence to feather the sand down. Just an idea, cool vid!

Three years later, the perfectly level lawn is higher than his mailbox.

Thank-you! I've known about top dressing for some time, but never knew how to do it. I put a $400 suspension seat on my Kubota, when I could have spent the money on some sand, haha. I'm doing this in the fall. Thanks again.

Not that I agree or would do this to my lawn, unless it was severely uneven, but it's nice to see somebody that takes pride in taking care of their property. All the haters on here are probably either renters or own their homes, but they look like poop. Don't pay attention to them. And to say that he's got to be rich because he's taking care of his pad - what a bunch of BS.... I'll find you poor people middle-class people and rich people that all take care of their stuff just because they care and have pride.... All Races all colors... That's what builds a great country... Not lazy bastards that knock somebody for taking care what they own...

At the golf course I work at here in Ohio, we actually have a contraption that is a essentially a heavy plywood board with two 36 inch brooms on it that we use to drag in our greens for a heavy top dress! Looks like in that situation something like that would be a huge help for you! I’m sure you could throw something together like that and do the job well!

I was searching for ways to fill in spots that have become uneven in my yard due to a lot of rain the past two years. I don't know if I can pull off what you've done, but it's a great idea to start. Thank you!

Looks great! Be careful if you have an older home with a pier and beam foundation. You can end up with drainage issues (water pools under house with nowhere to go)

I have to do this to make a newly installed drainfield level. Your results are amazing.

This makes me so happy! I will totally be doing this when we have a yard again... I love a nice flat lawn! Thanks for sharing

My mom had the same drive to want the perfect flat yard, I know she didn’t grow up with one being from Hawaii their yard was multilevel, small and not seen from the street. But every summer in Texas heat and humidity, my dad and I were following her instructions moving sand with just a wheelbarrow and a shovel. Pulling weed roots by hand, working a mixture of banana peels, egg shells and coffee grounds into her Rose garden. Ugh I hated it. But now with my own home I do my best to have maybe not the best lawn but a close 2nd or 3rd on the street. I really need to start on leveling this year. I cut down a diseased 60yo maple few years back and even though I stump friend it down what remained has rotted I guess and now lawn has a big dip in it. Great lawn sir and your dedication to it is very nostalgic for me.

I give this man alot of credit He is a hard working SOB I did tis in my 20s and 30s but just dont have the WHATEVER to do it anymore WISH I DID

At least the cats in the neighborhood will have a nice place to take a dump.

For years people have been telling me to go pound sand. .... If id only known this before .... Wow !!!!!!

That yard is gonna cut like a dream when it’s all said and done. Good job man. Hank Hill approved

Great video. Always felt intimidated with leveling the lawn. Good step by step. 👍🏻👍🏻

I just put small pieces of turf from lowes on top of my lawn low spots. And to my surprise it worked great

Dude's lawn looks nicer than the carpet in my house

I have 4 acres, and mow it with a 6 foot Landpride mower pulled by an old Ford 8 n tractor. My lawn is country grass, that is kentucky Blue, fesque, rye and a bunch of junk, but when it's cut it looks nice. My unflat lawn when cut with a zero radius Xmark or other commercial mower, you bounce like a basketball, and is so uncomfortable to mow. So I appreciate you showing us what to do. I have a front loader, by Ford new Holland, and could do this a little quicker than shoveling by hand. And for guys attempting this, no one says it has to all be done in a weekend, or the entire year for that matter. Break it down into segments.

There is no doubt that he is a hard working guy he reminds me of a neighbor I had every morning he would go out to check his lawn with a ruler until it was perfectly leveled then mother nature came and destroyed his yard with a tornado he moved after that goes to show nothing in life is perfect.

Good recommendations ! I am glad I`m living in tiny Switzerland with a very tiny lawn!😀

Awesome! It’s like one of those super satisfying videos brother. Keep em coming Connor 🙏🏻

It's Miller time! I got thirsty just watching! Impressive amount of work. I would love to see the end results.

Great job! Despite the rude comments! Gotta be proud of your homestead.

I don't know but it looked pretty flat before

my back started aching just watching this video.

I did something similar to level topsoil across an area whee I had a ditch culvert installed, then filled in. However, I took one of my 5ft high 4ft wide chain link fence gates off of the fence, ran climbing rope through the hinges, rigged 2x4s tol hold bricks on too for weight, then attached the whole rig to my riding lawn mower. Worked like a charm.

Dude! I'm building a broom drag, and just saw your comment. I'm glad I'm not the only crazy broom dragger!

His lawn is 10x better than mine before he even started. 🤣

I bet you could drag around a 10ft x 3ft chunk of chain link fence and it'd do the job and be lighter. It'd cut the time down too since it'd be a big square chunk of many contact points....a bit more than the 3 rails on that homemade thing.

Good job, absolutely nothing more rewarding than pride in ownership getting your hands dirty, and a hard days work,...your in pretty good shape pal, moveing 14 to 15 ton of material by hand in a few hours is awesome, I've seen guys eat up an entire Saturday doing similar projects and that's with a couple of buddies helping them out.

That's a man who takes care and pride in his castle. Well done sir, well done!

beautiful home. quite a project! in our area of Eastern US we use a blend of peat moss and topsoil. seems to work well.

A few questions; How much did you pay a load? What kind of sand??? I heard there’s multiple types What part of the country is home? Great job like you said hard work but well worth it. Thank you for the video

This was my job 20 years ago at the local golf course..... Flatest nicest greens in town thanks to this method every year. Great video and honestly never thought to try it at my home. Nice channel.

We're not making fun of this guy. It's his hobby. More power to him. The darn video got almost 2.5 million views. However, you all heard how much work this was just to get his grass flat! 30 tons of sand?! 30 friggin' tons. I guess I'm not up on my flatness specifications. My lawn service guy does a great job and my grass looks wonderful. Green, flat, trimmed and edged once a week - just how flat, I have no friggin' clue.

LAST YEAR!! you have to do this every year! damn, i'll live with all the bumps

I have 3 acres of "lawn"... I'm lucky I get it mowed below 3 feet on a regular basis

Good video. Even better comments. This video has to have sparked some of the funniest responses I’ve read in a long time on RU-vid. Looks like the work paid off!

I guess I just can’t believe this video has nearly 3 million views. It’s a wierd world we live in. He likes “a nice flat lawn”

Bro, I admire the HELL out of you for your hard work and commitment but OMG my back and knees are friggin killing me just watching this. Besides, your lawn was gorgeous when you started!

You should mount the broom heads on the back of your drag grate. This way the front metal knocks down the piles upon impact and the brooms push the sand down into the canopy as they pull behind.

Man I thought I was obsessed with a flat lawn. I prepped my ground with 3 foot aluminum rake, a string then high power lights at night to see the high and low spots. Once that was done, I laid sod. Now I have a dog and kids. It’s not flat anymore!

No matter what the task, pride, care and attention to detail. A few life lessons to learn from what seems like a waste of time. Those who think that way waste more time than a man filled with a sense of pride, achievement and also having respect for his property 👍

Connor you are a workhorse , you work all day at your day job then come home and shovel and spread 15 tonne of sand . Hard work and dedication makes the lawn and gardens you have. 😁👍👍

If I’m ever over in the states I’m helping you out son, massive job! Solid as bro.

Don't make fun of this man. He is single-handedly supporting the trucking and sand industries, not to mention chiropractors. Wouldn't be surprised if the lawn bowling folks showed up to use his yard next spring!

I was going to say it's the most joyless looking lawn I've ever seen but that isn't entirely fair: clearly this guy's joy is making the most featurelessly flat lawn he possibly can. To that end: well done. It sure as heck doesn't appeal to me but it's not my place either. So if it's what makes you happy, well and good.

your lawn is already flat. If you wanted it flatter you should pour a concrete slab and paint it green. Then you wont have to even mow!

10 mins, 2 quads and 30 tonnes of sand later and the grass looks identical to when he started.

Great work Connor, this year will be my first year of top dressing, keep the videos coming

I use a 50/50 mix of topsoil and compost. $40/scoop. 3 scoops covered 1500 sq ft. I dropped it in piles and raked it smooth. Then I worked over it with a leaf rake to bring out the grass that was underneath. I had a lot of bare spots so I heavily seeded it. Watered it 2x a day for a month. Water bill cost $60 more for the month. But it looks good. Have to do front lawn this year. Maybe in fall though.

don’t forget to factor in the curvature of the earth which btw is not a perfect sphere!

why am I watching this, its so addictive

It is so embarrassing how epic videos such as this can cause so many arguments. I love this guy - great watch and great lawn.

I use an old street sweeper head with just a chain. It works awsome. They give them away. I never believed in the sand thing till i tried it. It works

One thought- make sure you don't undo any natural drainage away from your house. Smooth is great, especially when cutting, flat is a different thing.

If it takes 15tons for this guys damn near level yard i'm easily in the hundreds if not thousands of tons for my yard. Nice work yard looks absolutely amazing but damn I ain't got time for all that.

I rigged a broom system on a sand pro. Worked great and put the sand down fast and level. Of course, it was a hydraulic lift and very stiff so the level was easy to achieve. Great video.

Years ago there was a tv inventions show that featured a laser leveler tractor for farms. Man, do you ever need this device!

This guy makes me laugh every time...such a fricken rebel. See how he just threw that gasoline on to the gas tank on that quad? Fricken Connor. 😂

I did this with a lawn 20+ years ago. But instead of just sand I did a 50/50 mix of sand and compost from aerating, thatching, moss removal and grass clippings from the season before. I didn't have a quad for leveling but used a 16' 2x4 and my wife's help to screed the mixture in like leveling concrete. My lawn where I live now is terrible, I need to add some sand and compost and completely renovate it. But I will need other help since my wife is now 62!!!

I want to try to raise my grass up next season. We had concrete poured and it’s a couple inches higher that the lawn, and I hate it. I think this is going to help!

I admire your commitment, your lawn looks great!

"Mom...that weird guy at the corner is throwing sand on his lawn again..."

Aside the negative comments great job when you take pride in your property it shows!

Nicely done thank you. Love your home! And that's 15 tons of sand? Wow, lots of shoveling!

Pretty cool idea for creating a nice smooth-looking lawn, Dude. However, I do want to make one point, and hopefully I'll hear back from you on what you think of this idea: Currently, you fill your "bucket" with a fairly large pile of sand, you haul the bucket out onto a spot on your lawn, and you dump that whole pile in one spot. At that point, you have a big pile of sand that you need to evenly distribute, making several passes. Rather than dumping each pile onto a new spot on the lawn, have you thought of trying to "sift the sand" out of the bucket as you drive? Couldn't you drill holes into the back side of the bucket, then tilt the bucket at a very slight angle downward, away from the 4-wheeler. Then, fill the bucket with a pile of sand, and drive the 4-wheeler across the lawn. With any luck, the sand will gradually fall out the back of the bucket, due to inertia as you drive forward. With any luck, the sand will fall out onto the lawn in a more-or-less evenly distributed manner. Maybe? Maybe not? Maybe the holes will clog immediately; I don't know. Thanks.