Pressure wash high spots

Discuss how to and whether you should renovate your lawn
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DeepC
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Pressure wash high spots

Post by DeepC » July 10th, 2020, 6:57 pm

I took a pressure washer to the high spots in my yard. I scalped the grass as low as my riding rotary mower would go to find the high spots. Then I used the pressure washer to shave them down. Kind of the opposite of the typical leveling job. I'm not sure if that's a good idea or a bad idea, but it was my idea. We'll see what happens...
The roots of the grass are now exposed and I assume will die. Its bermuda so maybe it will fill back in. Anybody ever tried this?
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schreibdave
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Re: Pressure wash high spots

Post by schreibdave » July 11th, 2020, 9:42 am

I think that's a really good idea. If it shaves down the high spots and allows to to rake the excess dirt into the low spots, it sounds good to me. It must have made a mess but sounds 100x easier than trying to do this with a shovel. I may try it myself when I reno my back yard next month.

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ken-n-nancy
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Re: Pressure wash high spots

Post by ken-n-nancy » July 11th, 2020, 10:13 am

schreibdave wrote:
July 11th, 2020, 9:42 am
I think that's a really good idea. If it shaves down the high spots and allows to to rake the excess dirt into the low spots, it sounds good to me. It must have made a mess but sounds 100x easier than trying to do this with a shovel. I may try it myself when I reno my back yard next month.
Presuming that the overall grade is about where it should be, I really like the approach of shaving off high spots and using the soil from those areas to fill in the low spots. What I've done when performing a renovation of a relatively small portion (~2000sqft) of existing lawn which was all being killed off and re-seeded was to shave off the high spots using a large flat shovel, and placing that shaved-off soil in the low spots to build those up. It worked out very well. Also, the "shaving off" can be done without disturbing the soil underneath, so it reduces "uneven settling" problems that one would get with just tilling everything (which is often thought of in the wider community as the way to install a lawn).

I've never thought of "shaving off" the high spots with a pressure washer, though -- that is an interesting idea, but I wonder if it separates the soil too much ("over works it"), leading to a silty top layer in the places where the soil has ended up?

I would think bermuda grass will come back just fine and in a month it will look better than before. (This said by somebody that has never grown bermuda, but just watched others on these forums...)

DeepC
Posts: 18
Joined: June 25th, 2020, 10:09 pm
Location: Rockwall, TX
Grass Type: Bermuda
Lawn Size: 10000-20000
Level: Novice

Re: Pressure wash high spots

Post by DeepC » July 11th, 2020, 12:47 pm

The soil that has been "shaved off" is not reusable to put in the low spots. Because it's just gone. Or not really gone, its everywhere, lol. I was able to kind of push 25% percent of it in a direction of the low spots but the other 75 percent is all blasted everywhere and all over me. It does make a mess, But the high spots are definitely shaved down.
My daughter said" DAD!!!, I thought you were trying to make the yard look better???"
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DeepC
Posts: 18
Joined: June 25th, 2020, 10:09 pm
Location: Rockwall, TX
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Re: Pressure wash high spots

Post by DeepC » July 11th, 2020, 1:10 pm

The dark areas is the grass covered in mud spray


Masbustelo
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Re: Pressure wash high spots

Post by Masbustelo » July 12th, 2020, 5:15 pm

Invention is the mother of necessity.

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Dchall_San_Antonio
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Re: Pressure wash high spots

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » July 25th, 2020, 7:53 pm

We're in water rationing now, so the pressure washer is back in storage, but this idea came to me when I was cleaning the driveway a few weeks ago. I have more holes than high spots, so it's not really an option for me.

schreibdave
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Re: Pressure wash high spots

Post by schreibdave » August 12th, 2020, 5:05 pm

I used this strategy with a regular garden hose today. It seemed to work. I had small humps left over from where I transplanted sod into gulleys caused by a wash out 3 years ago. Much easier than trying to shave an inch or two off with a flat shovel.

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