1st house, 1st garden, bad lawn

[godaddy]

Hi all,

So I bought my first house and the lawn is terrible, lots of bad weeds, lots of dandelion.

What should I do to give make my lawn green and beautiful?

What are the steps?

I'm a totally noob at this, so I'll need more detailed steps.

Where do I start? I spent the whole afternoon yesterday removing the dandelion.

Woke up this morning and bam! Tons of dandelion reappeared ... so hopeless.

The lawn is not really green, it's like dry or something.

Where do I start? Soil? Fertilizing? plant weed seed?

Thanks!

[Scrapinthehat]

Although I have some grass, I'm not a big fan of it. Have you considered removing it and replacing with flowers or xeriscaping? If you must have grass, I've heard that corn meal applied regularly is an effective, organic way to control weeds. There are many weed and feed fertilizers on the market too. Good luck. (Keep an open mind about removing the grass since it requires a lot of time, energy, water, and fertilizer to keep it looking good...IMHO)

[Countryboy]

Detailed steps?? . . well OK.

1/ Leave the Dandylions where they are. A healthy lawn will eventually crowd them out. And u've got other things to do.

2/ De-thatch the lawn . . . either with a rake or a machine.

3/ Sometime when the soil is a bit moist rent an Aerator and go over the whole lawn.
.................................................................................

Now u can work on the lawn.

I would get some organics spread out over it. An inch or two of Peat Moss, Triple Mix, old potting soil, chopped up leaves . . . anything like that. Add some 'bulk' to yr lawn . . . it sounds pretty dry. While yr doing that search this *Canadian Gardening* site for 'lawn'. See which articles are germane to yr situation. Maybe 'Care-free Lawns' by Larry Hodgson would be a start. If u've got a lot of 'bareness' yr gonna need to put down some seed so check out types of grass seed and which ones will suit yr area the best.

It's pretty much that easy to get it started. Straightforward . . but lots of work.

[Eeyore]

Depending on the age of the lawn it may be time to take up the old sod and put down new. It's possible that the soil has become compacted and low in nutrients.

[Peekay]

Reading with interest... my lawn is kinda sad looking too.

Good luck with greening!

[godaddy]

I went to home depot the other and its more confusing now

They say I got 2 choice, replace the whole damn thing with the carpet lawn .... don't know how much that can cost.

Or try to make your garden beautful again, but she said that it's alot of work based on the health of the soil, if it's all rock, etc ....

Seem to me like I have to dig alot and put new complete new soil. Then the weed seed (but she says that the bird will eat them all, also that I can't walk on my lawn till next year) ....

So complicated ....

What can I do? Can I just put some soil on top of my grass and some weed seed and fertilizer?

Really clueless as where to start.... I don't really want to replace the whole thing with carpet lawn, that could cost alot......

I'd like to see what are the other options and try them out and see the result.

[godaddy]

Depending on the age of the lawn it may be time to take up the old sod and put down new. It's possible that the soil has become compacted and low in nutrients.

If I were to do this, how much should I dig down? Then I replace with what kind of soil? After the soil I put the grass seeds ? And the the fertilizer? Then water?

[Countryboy]

We're at a bit of a loss too Daddy. Never having seen yr lawn it's impossible for us to give u more than 'lawn repair' generalities. IMO u shouldn't have to dig down at all . . but I may be wrong. It's hardly ever necessary to completely re-sod a lawn . . . but maybe, in yr case, it is. Replacing soil??? . . . not likely! . . . but again, maybe necessary. We don't know.

We do know that u cannot put sod over existing lawn . . . or compacted soil. We do know that aeration will fix compacted soil. We do know that fertilizer is mostly a non-issue when yr just starting a lawn. Worry abt fertilizer much later . . . when a lawn is established.

Can u get us some pix of the area?

[NikosSod]

I agree with Countryboy - hard to give a solid advice without knowing how large your lawn is...
Here's a quick post that might help - 5 ways to deal with Dandelions in your lawn http://wp.me/pSoKt-1J
Hope this helps!

[Eeyore]

Lets back up a bit. Answer these questions for us and we'll go from there?

1) First how big is the lawn?
2) How bad of shape is it in?
3) How old is the lawn?
4) Are there a lot of trees around or in the lawn?
5) Is it really compacted with a lot of bare spots and weeds?
6)Or is it still fairly green with weeds?
7) Is it uneven ie. feels like you are walking on an uneven surface?

Can you post a photo for us?