Leveling project, 2016 progress

Bermuda, St. Augustine, Zoysia, Centipede, Bahia, Paspalum, etc
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Jayhawkmba
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by Jayhawkmba » July 10th, 2016, 10:51 pm

tbdh20 wrote:I have 2 reels, A mclane and trucut, If you have any slope the McLane will preform better...
Hmmm....i tried a mclame and the sliding belt damaged my grass. Trucut wheels like a boss and the hoc adjustment ease makes it a no brainer. I have tifgrand where i mow as low as it can, zoysia at +4.

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tbdh20
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by tbdh20 » July 12th, 2016, 1:11 am

Jayhawkmba wrote:
tbdh20 wrote:I have 2 reels, A mclane and trucut, If you have any slope the McLane will preform better...
Hmmm....i tried a mclame and the sliding belt damaged my grass. Trucut wheels like a boss and the hoc adjustment ease makes it a no brainer. I have tifgrand where i mow as low as it can, zoysia at +4.
Maybe I should had added more info. The Trucut is superior in construction,cut and ease of use, on most surfaces. On a side hill lie the Trucut will (for me) bog/shut down... never have that issue with the Mclane. It's probably user error, but haven't figured it out yet.

J_nick
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by J_nick » July 12th, 2016, 7:12 am

My Tru Cut also bogs/ cuts out on a steep slope I have. I've found it does it worse when the left side is downhill. Figured it had to do with starving for gas but hadn't dug much into it.

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tbdh20
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by tbdh20 » September 29th, 2016, 6:17 pm

The project continues next year. I made a few mistakes but enjoyed the progress. All in all, learned a ton reading posts and input from experts.

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ajmikola
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by ajmikola » September 29th, 2016, 8:28 pm

Forgive the ignorance and jumping on the thread so late.
I want to level next year, and it sounds like verticutting is the way to go.

Is a verticutter similar to a dethatcher? Or am i way off base?

Robin rents in my area has this: they are calling it a dethatcher, but have also seen a harley rake?
Are they all the same?
ImageUploadedByYard Help1475195226.072892.jpg


J_nick
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by J_nick » September 29th, 2016, 8:48 pm

Dethatcher is similar to a verticutter but the blades are way different. A Harley rake is more like a rotatiller

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Jayhawkmba
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by Jayhawkmba » September 29th, 2016, 11:18 pm

There is a great recent thread on the topic....simonR even has a YouTube video. I might could find it

Dethatchers are pretty violent....depot has them for rent...take a look...it'll all make sense :)

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tbdh20
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by tbdh20 » October 1st, 2016, 8:26 am

ajmikola wrote:Forgive the ignorance and jumping on the thread so late.
I want to level next year, and it sounds like verticutting is the way to go.

Is a verticutter similar to a dethatcher? Or am i way off base?

Robin rents in my area has this: they are calling it a dethatcher, but have also seen a harley rake?
Are they all the same?
ImageUploadedByYard Help1475195226.072892.jpg
I plan on using a flail blade setup early next season to aggressively knock things down (sand with om). The sanding this year helped but grading issues in my situation are severe. As the season went on, I realized throwing sand at it again was not going to fix my problem, and am going to remove the trees this winter. Not advising you, everyone's situation is different. On this side, will keep a taller HOC initially as the PGR handled a couple vacations without issues.

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Dchall_San_Antonio
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » October 9th, 2016, 7:31 pm

Speaking of jumping in late...ahem

At this point I think it would be good to reflect on the process you used to see what went wrong. Most of the leveling projects here and about on other forums result in startlingly good success.

I have a a few questions.
  1. What did you do as far as fertilizer and water before the final scalping day?
  2. How many times did you apply sand, water it down, and reapply to fill in the low spots?
  3. About how deep was the sand when you finished?

wardconnor
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by wardconnor » October 10th, 2016, 12:02 am

ken-n-nancy wrote:
As a cool-season guy, I'm still just stunned that one can cover over all their bermuda grass like that and it will just come back up through it and be level afterwards! Wish we could do that with our northern mix!
I have done this 2 times on northern grasses. It works great.

Leveling by top dressing is a multi year process in my opinion. Reason being that it just takes a good while for the turf to re thicken up and fill in before you can top dress again for another round.

I just bought 30 ton of sand on labor day 2016. It's a crazy amount of work. I have 22k ft though. It cost me 14$ per ton and I think $170 to deliver it. Golf quality Sand that courses for hundreds of miles away pay to have trucked. It's 30 miles from me. Lucky in that regard.

As for verticutter, try finding a slice seeder. This has a verticutter under the machine. Just do not put any seed in the hopper. Look for this machine or equivalent https://youtu.be/DfJ_u490z0M .

Patience is key. Anything good in life usually takes time and work.

This is my KBG/PRG lawn being top dressed. Before picture.

Image

Here is the after picture 1 month later

Image

zachhorn
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by zachhorn » August 30th, 2018, 11:33 am

Greetings all, I have read several posts on this topic and am still a bit confused on what "Best Practice" is for leveling a lawn.

For some background I have an 18 month old lawn (new construction, sodded Feb 2017) of Tiff419. I live in Austin TX. The builder did a very poor job sodding and I have substantial dips, holes, high spots, etc in my 6K sqft lawn. I would love to get to the point where I could use a reel mower to maintain 3/4-1" height. I would like to bit the bullet and level the lawn next spring after I scalp it down and am looking for a summary of what to do and how to do it (like many things, when you go back and read posts dating back several years it's easy to read different things that are contradictory).

From what I have gathered, the approach should be to scalp the yard once it begins to green up in the spring and spread an even layer of play sand mixed with topsoil at a rate of ~1 cu yrd/K. Rake/sweep it in, drag a screen across it, etc. and then water in with a least an inch of water. Am I on the right track?

Any advice or guidance would be most appreciated.

ctrav
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by ctrav » August 30th, 2018, 12:59 pm

Im looking forward to seeing the response to this as I need some sand on my yard as well. I have heard that straight sand is fine and yet some say sand mix. I cant figure it out but I had a neighbor who just used san and his lawn filled in nicely. It took him three applications and his front yard is not even half my front yard so this will be a big chore for sure...

zachhorn
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Re: Leveling project, 2016 progress

Post by zachhorn » August 30th, 2018, 4:51 pm

I left off the Verticut step above. I’ll be sure not to skip this step.

Also, it would be helpful to understand timing for pre-em, fertilizer etc. I am assuming I would take my soil sample before sanding? Thanks in advance for the advice.

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