Remodeling the Back Yard - Planting Grass
Grass seed planting was the order of the day yesterday. Now that the oak tree was out, the stump ground to nothing, and most of the landscape fabric pulled out, we finished leveling the yard and planted grass.
Leveling the yard is a relative thing. We didn't have a roller or anything, and we weren't meticulous about checking the level. In fact, we wanted to maintain a slight slope in the grade away from the house for better drainage of water coming off the roof. My husband laid a long piece of pvc pipe from the part of the grass closest to the house that is about the right level, across the area decimated by the tree removal, and that gave us an idea of what needed to be filled in or knocked down. There were also several areas that were just hard-packed sand, like where the playset was before and places that had been covered up by branches for a long time. We also didn't really water that part of the yard last summer at all, so it all needed at least some topdressing with topsoil.
Finally it was time to plant the grass seed using a spreader. It went so quickly and easily that I wonder why we don't plant grass all the time.
We used something called a Midwestern mix of grass seed. It's supposed to be for sun and light shade. I think there's enough sun there for most of the day to qualify as light shade under the trees. I guess we'll find out!
Then my husband spread a type of mulch/fertilizer mix. It looks like pellets of rabbit food, and supposedly the mulch part of it will expand when wet, though I don't really see it happening. Now that we've watered twice.
Watering is the key to growing grass, from what I remember. We are planning to go 2-3x a day with watering, for an hour at a time. It's such a large area that we have to use both the sprinkler system and a separate sprinkler on a hose to catch it all. (The back part of our yard has no sprinkler system because there once was a swimming pool back there.)
This was sort of a band-aid approach to planting grass. To do it "right" we ought to have ripped out all the old sod in the areas around the grass-less areas, laid down a nice mix of compost and topsoil, leveled it all (maybe compacted somewhat with a roller) and seeded. But we didn't need to be that fancy, we just want a nice grassy spot for the kids to throw the ball around, or set up a volleyball net.
