Clearing Project - From Forest to Lawn (with some advice needed from the lawn guys)

[Piston]

I'm going to need some advice from the experienced "lawn" guys here, and hoping to keep this thread updated with pics along the way. Hopefully someday, there will actually be photos of grass somewhere in here.

I'm planning ahead for a project I have coming up. I need some information on what I need to do in order to get a nice lawn from what is currently wooded.
This is what I currently have to work with on the north side of the house, mostly pine...







And here is what I have on the south side of the house, mostly birch...




I'm going to be expanding my "yard" on a new to me house we will be moving into. The land hasn't been maintained for many many years, and is fully grown in aside from a very small amount of grass surrounding the house.

It's basically two different sections that I'll be clearing, one is full grown pines, and the other side of the house is overgrown birch trees. I intend to clear out almost all the trees on the north side (pines and uphill) and then remove a fair amount of material and move it to the south (birch and downhill) side of the house, hopefully leveling out a small area immediately surrounding the house and getting rid of the sloping section so rain runoff doesn't lead into the house, but rather around the house, as well as have a small area of somewhat level ground to enjoy.

After clearing and regrading, I'll be left with a bunch of...well...dirt!
I feel confident I can get to this stage, but my questions begin here, with how to go from newly turned over ground (which will be considerably different soil than what was originally on "top") to a nicely prepped seedbed that will actually grow the grass seed I intend to put down.

I want this to come out nice and don't mind if I need to take time to let things "settle".

My guess is, finish spreading all the dirt, grading, prepping, and then Take a handful of soil samples and treat the soil from there, add seed, water, water, water, fertilize, water etc.???

Any advice from the lawn pros on how to get from the dirt stage to the nice lawn stage? The property is on the north side of a small mountain in the lakes region of NH.

 

[Streetcar]

If possible strip topsoil off the area and stockpile for topping off ground after grading is complete

 

[nybirdman]

Plan on adding lime to the pine area.PH test for sure.

 

[MAN IN BLACK]

I don't understand why you want to get rid of your trees to have more lawn...most people want the exact opposite.
The pines are not overgrown...they just need thinning to continue to grow.

 

[Rustyiron]

If your soils are like mine, that is several inches of black "wood's dirt", poor in nutrients over sandy gravel, I'd be real delicate disturbing the top layer pulling those stumps, unless your bringing in truckloads of good loam. So many questions,

are you doing the work?
do you want the wood ?
Logger involved?
is there an area where you can drag these trees to for further processing?
did you get your excavator or dozer:laughing:
Is this the place you've been talking about for years? Iirc you were talking-dreaming-planning about this on Hearth/boiler room way back. Grandparent's old place or something :thumbsup:

 

[Piston]

If your soils are like mine, that is several inches of black "wood's dirt", poor in nutrients over sandy gravel, I'd be real delicate disturbing the top layer pulling those stumps, unless your bringing in truckloads of good loam.

That's something I'm wondering about, if I'm going to need a bunch of top soil brought in. I imagine my soil is similar to yours in that respect.

are you doing the work?
do you want the wood ?
Logger involved?
is there an area where you can drag these trees to for further processing?
did you get your excavator or dozer:laughing:
Is this the place you've been talking about for years? Iirc you were talking-dreaming-planning about this on Hearth/boiler room way back. Grandparent's old place or something :thumbsup:

To answer the rest of your questions..
Yes I'm doing the work.
I do want some of the millable pines, and some trees for firewood.
No logger involved.
No other area "yet" as it's all woods.
I had updated the threads on the ex and dozer at some point but to save you from searching, yes on the excavator, dozer is undecided until I can take it for a test drive
Lastly, unfortunately no this isn't the same place, but your memory is good, I was originally dreaming of building a timberframe home on that land, however numerous IVF cycles later and my house fund has dwindled along with my timberframe home dream, but I do have two great boys and another kid on the way so I am not complaining one little bit.
This home came up for sale which abuts our land so we decided to just buy this and make it work as best we can, even though it isn't our "dream" home.


Streetcar,
I'll attempt to strip as much topsoil off as I can, and stockpile it to spread later. Thank you.

 

[Creamer]

I am thinking as little disturbance as possible, i.e. cut the trees down and stump grind them below surface. In a few years you will need to add some dirt to level off where the roots rotted away and the ground sank but not bad. It would be a lot less work and i am not sure it wouldn't be just as level because when you start tearing out the rootballs it is going to leave a big hole that will settle differently unless you let it set a year and then regrade it.