New Lawn Plan

[snmhanson]

Hi All,

Right off the bat I want to appologize for such a long post. I am starting on putting in a lawn over a generally level but kind of bumpy 1 1/2 acres with a slight slope that runs across the area and a few "waves" running across the slope. I've got a B7800 with FEL and a 65" box blade as my tools of choice. I am also going to get a landscape rake. I've already done an initial spraying with weed killer so I've got alot of dead weeds right now. My plan is as follows:

1) Box blade the entire mess with the teeth down. Make as many passes as necessary to really loosed up soil and on the final pass flag any large buried rocks that the box blade couldn't pull out but I need removed. Try to contour out the waves during this stage.

2) Using a landscape rake remove any small to medium rocks that came to the surface during the box blading.

3) Week kill the whole thing a second time to take care of any stubborn weeds that are still there.

4) Call in the big guns (excavator) to take out those buried rocks and move a few that the 7800 couldn't get a hold of.

5) Have dirt brought in to fill and level.

6) Add ammendments to all soil as necessary.

7) Rent a tiller and till everything all together.

8) Make a quick pass to rake for rocks again.

9) Rough grade with the box blade with teeth up.

10) Install the sprinkler system. Try a subsoiler/middle buster for this or rent a ditch witch.

11) Final grade with box blade or landscape rake.

12) Apply weed killer one last time if necessary.

13) Finally - plant grass or hydroseed. If it is too late in spring I will just need to wait until fall but hopefully I will be able to get it done this spring.

I just thought I'd post this before I get started to see if anyone has any comments or suggestions for me, especially relating to using the tractor during this job but any comments are welcomed. A few specific questions I have though are:

Are there any tricks to using the box blade for this type of work? I assume to really dig in and loosen the soil you generally want to tilt the top forward to get the teeth down and you want it pretty level for grading work, correct? I have made the initial passes over a small area and it seems to be working pretty well. I'm left with an area that basically looks like it has been plowed.

Also, any suggestions on how to knock down the waves that I have with the box blade? They aren't too severe and are pretty broad but my wife wants everything completely smooth. (I kind of like them actually as it adds a little bit of interest but she's the boss /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif)

Has anyone use a subsoiler/middle buster to dig ditches? I am going to use schedule 40 and I want it at least 12" down so I won't be able to rig anything up to lay the pipe while dragging the subsoiler as it just won't bend enough.

For final grading should I use the box blade or landscape rake?

I have one very stubborn area about 20' wide x 90' long between the side of the house and the property line that seems like it has more small rocks than dirt in it. It slopes in to the house and needs to be leveled down about 18" twenty feet from the house to 0" next to the house. I can't raise the soil level next to the house. Any suggestions for dealing with this area? I'm tempted to just put in a weed barrier and bark dust and plant trees and shrubs but it would look out of place and grass would be really nice there.

Any other suggestions would be very helpful as this is a pretty big and intimidating project for me. Sorry again about the long post but I just wanted to be comprehensive in describing my plans and everyone on this site seems to really enjoy helping others with their project ideas. Hope to get some good advice here. Thanks a bunch. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Matt

 

[ljh2]

Matt,
It sounds like you've thought things through pretty well. I don't have any great pointers to offer about using your tractor for this project, since the last time I was involved in a landscaping project of this magnatude, we were using a small dozer to do the leveling.

I'm looking forward to learning from your process and hopefully your 'pictorial' documentation.

One step you might want to add is to have any electric, phone, cable, gas, water, etc... lines marked to be sure you don't have any surprises. Also make sure to maintain a watershed grade to keep excess water away from building foundations and to allow for drainage. Be careful of weight near septic tanks and distribution boxes as well as over any drainfield leach lines. Be sure NOT to disturb the soil (more than a few inches deep) around the leach lines.

I'm looking forward to learning from your process and hopefully your 'pictorial' documentation. Have fun and be safe. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Poppa]

Matt, I too am interested in how this turns out. Seems like you are going to do on a large scale what I hope to do in a few select places. Also, you are going to do it using the very tractor I hope to soon be ordering.

So, first advice. Take pictures. Before pictures, during pictures and after pictures. For one thing, it would be nice to see a picture of the area you have "practiced on with the Box Blade". Now, on that area you ripped with the BB scarifiers. I would suggest, if possible, try going ninety degrees to the original direction. That should really open up the soil, then use that landscape rake you mentioned to smooth it out. Of course that assumes you actually want to worry about smoothing it now, considering how many more steps you have.

Anyway, Good luck, Have fun and please, Pictures.

Mike

 

[snmhanson]

I'll go out and take some pictures today and post them either here or on my website. I'll add a link to my website if I post them there. Hopefully I will be able to give you guys some feedback in the near future as I hope to put this project on the fast track. However, with all the other stuff I've got going on you never know how long it will really take. My best case senario will have me planting grass in mid-late May. Worst case would hopefully be planting grass in fall if I can't get to the planting by May. If it looks like that is going to be the case I probably will not rush the rest of the project and do it over the summer. In any case I will try to continue posting updates each time I complete a major step. Wish me luck.

Matt

 

[ljh2]

You should probably update your profile too, because with this task ahead of you, there will be NO MORE HOBBIES!!! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif


At least for a while... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[RonR]

Matt,

One of the things (I learned the hard way) is you will have things wash out if you have some slope in the lawn. After re-filling the gulleys three times, I finally realized there was a better way. I left the gulleys alone, and nurtured the other grass til it was stable and lush. THEN, I refilled the gulleys again, and made them 1" taller than the surrounding areas. Result was no washouts, and after replanting it, filled in nicely.

I doubt that you need to rake after tilling, but you should do something to pack the ground after planting. Tilling really fluffs the ground a lot.

I'm not sure how smooth you can make your yard with box blade scarifiers. If you have access to something else, think I'd try that instead.......

Best wishes,
And keep the pics coming.

Attached is a pic of my backyard, following removal of a pool.

 

[RonR]

Attached is a pic of the ground worked up. I built a harrow type tool to create the effect. In addition, I tilled it twice a week apart prior to this.

Enjoy.
Ron

 

[RonR]

Here's the harrow I built.

 

[EddieWalker]

If you have trouble getting things smoothed out with the box blade, try dragging a heavy log, I-Beam, Post, gate, box bed, or some fencing. Jus about anything heavy works wonder on smooting the ground out. It's real simple to do and the results are instant.

Good Luck,
Eddie

 

[bmac]

Are you sure you want to start this project now if you can't plant the grass until fall? Seems like (1) it won't look very good all summer, (2) with the slope you described I would be concerned about erosion over this period of time, (3) weeds will pop up again. (4) you may find yourself repeating several steps in the fall.

I believe I would find an approprite time to plant the seed and then schedule (read reserve and protect) the time needed for ground prep immediately before the planting time. This way you minimize the issues stated above.

I'm in no way an expert on lawn installations (But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif ) and others more experienced than I may shoot down these recommendations. And I'm OK with that.

 

[LoganWildman]

As mentioned, tilling will fluff the ground up, so rolling will be necessary. If it was me, I'd pickup / rent a pulverizer. It will do just about everything you need to do.

If your going to install an sprinkling system, don't worry so much about it getting late to seed, just straw it and water it in the evenings. Also use a vibrating plow to install the water lines. They work great, and there is no backfilling and settling to worry about.

 

[snmhanson]

Thought I'd give an update on my project and then finally post a few pictures for anyone interested. The project has gone pretty much to plan and I am still hoping on an end of May to mid-June completion. Since my initial posts I box bladed the yard a few times to try to loosen up/find some rocks. I also bent my FEL bucket a little trying to dig a big one out of the ground. Warning, it's very tempting to try to dig them out yourself but if it isn't budging either dig around it more or hire someone to come in. That being said, I was pretty amazed at how big a rock the B7800 could "pop" right out of the ground.

After box blading I went to work with my 72" landscape rake to try to get the small and medium sized rocks collected and out of the way. This only worked ok. If I put it on an angle it would collect the rocks after a couple passes and leave them in a nice row but it would also collect a lot of the dirt as well. Anyway, I scooped the rock/dirt mixture out of there and made some more passes with both the box blade with teeth up and down and the rake. Everytime I thought I had all the rocks taken care of one pass with the box blade would reveal just as many more. Finally I decided I got enough out of the way and made a final pass with the rake to give everything a nice groomed look. Overall the box blade and rake combo worked really well for leveling/moving dirt and generally clearing everything away. It would have been nice, however, to have had a Harley rake for removing the rocks.

Once all that was done I called my excavator contractor and he came out with his big John Deere. He spent seven hours pulling out all of the boulders I had marked and tore apart a rock shelf that was in the middle of where the main lawn area is going to be. He cleared all of the big rock fragments out of there but left a mess of smaller rocks for me. I spent four or five hours that night box blading and raking that area.

Today (Saturday) I had topsoil brought in to fill in low areas and for a nice layer of soil for the grass area. What I was hoping would take about five truck loads (10 yards each) ended up using sixteen and I'm not done yet. I anticipate needing another five or six loads. At $125 per load this is can get expensive. Oh well, it's better to pay for what you need up front rather than cheap out and be unhappy with the long-term results. While the dirt was being delivered I was using the tractor to spread it out. The box blade and FEL combo worked magnificently for this. I was able to spread the entire load and rough grade it while he went for another. He only got ahead of me because I had to go get more deisel. This is where my tractor really shined and was totally in it's element. The only bad part of the day other than writing a check for $2000 was that it started to rain pretty hard. I worked for a couple more hours in the rain and then my tractor with turf tires started getting a mind of it's own. I decided it would be a good time to call it a day. If the rain stops I'll be back on it tomorrow.

That's all for now. I'll just post a few pictures if you're interested. I need to start on the next post though because I'm not sure on how to post a picture and I don't want to take a chance of losing this when trying to figure it out.

 

[snmhanson]

Sorry, I think all of my pictures are too large to post here. I'll work on resizing them so they can be posted here or getting them on my website.

Matt