Hi. I've been soouring throught the various new lawn topics and of course have been reading lots of opinions. By the way, I find that the search feature in gardeneweb doesn't work very well. Anyone else notice that?

Let me describe my situation as briefly as I can: We rebuilt a house and in the process had about 65 yards of dirt dug up to make room for a basement expansion, and then distributed roughly over the surrounding lawn in the back yard. The front yard was left pretty much intact, but heavy equipment was run across it, and various building materials were imbedded into the ground over the year. I some dirt was excavated and distributed near the house. The whole property is about a third of an acre.

My problem is that I need to get seed down and growing before the town will issue a final certificate of occupancy and return a bond I had to post for landscaping (tough town). I have future plans to relandscape the entire property, but I believe this will take more than one year and it is something I'd like to take my time with and see what I can do and what I need to hire people for.

So here's a pic of the back yard and the dirt that was pushed around:

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The dirt covered area used to be a lawn and is about 1400 sf. It is completely packed full or rocks. Right in front of the big tree you can just see one of the piles of rocks I've accumulated while smoothing out the ground with a pick axe and rake. So I think what I want to do is prepare the ground enough so that I get a reasonable looking lawn -- one that I can mow easily and not be unhappy with for the next couple of years while I figure out the overall plan for the property.

I'm finding that it isn't practical for me to dig down 6 to 8 inches and remove all the rocks. It would take all summer and my back would be shot. My latest thought is to kind of scrape the ground an inch or two with the pick axe and remove any rocks that high up (even that is a chore). Then I could bring in a few yards of topsoil to get maybe a half inch on top of that. -- just rake in lightly as not to disturb more rocks, compact and seed.

In the future I might add a sprinkler system and sod, so I imagine I might have to rip up the turf at that point and get somebody to remove the rocks professionally. I assume it is necessary to remove all the rocks in the top 6" or so to get a really good lawn.

Good or bad plan?

OK, here's the next issue -- the front yard:

{{gwi:89375}}

So the lawn is pretty rough. I actually mowed it yesterday and had to lift the mower here and there to be sure I didn't scalp the ground. Again, down the road I might want to put in a sprinkler system and sod. Or, maybe build a 3' high kneewall and backfill to make a level lawn behind the wall. Point is I want a decent lawn, but don't want to overspend on things now that I might not need in one or two years.

What is the best way for me to level out the low spots and get seed down in an area that is both bare and spotted with existing grass? Rocks are not too much of an issue. Will topsoil fill in the low spots and not runoff? Do I need a landscaper to handle something like this or should I find some chain link fence? :)

Thanks for reading through this, and any suggestions would be very much appreciated. I'm trying not to reinvent the wheel, which is why this is such a great forum.

Dan