It looks like that area is quite a bit lower than the rest of the strip. Does it maybe need more soil to bring it up to the level of the rest of that area?

If that's from rain, there's probably not much you can do at the moment, but if you're watering, don't water that area so much.

Yep, that's from the rain.

3-5 minutes watering will cause puddle on that same area. :(

Ok, once it subsides, I will add more dirt. Any suggestion on what dirt I should buy?

Looks like there is still a lot of construction going on around you...you might be able to talk someone out of a wheelbarrow or 2 of dirt for that area.

I think I would make sure that corner is as close to the top of the concrete as possible so the water will drain over the curb.

If you have access to a hammer drill (you can rent one), you could pretty easily just punch a hole in the curb to the grass area and let it drain from there. Even a 1/2" bit would work fine. All you'd have to do is dig down enough to get the drill in there, then drill through it. You'd only have to do it 1-2" below the top to make sure it didn't crack.

That's only if the dirt mound doesn't work.

One other option would be to dig down 8-10" in that corner and lay 3-4" of gravel down for drainage, then put the dirt back on top of it.

I had 3 extra topsoil in the garage and I put them. It did help but I need more. I remember my neigbhbor dump a dirt beside his property. However, it's flooded right now. :(

Thanks for the ideas! :)

That looks to me like left over concrete from your house that was dumped just a few inches below the surface. I've seen that happen before, it would not surprise me.

Get some rebar and hammer down into the ground, BUT be VERY careful not to break any pipes or wires coming from the street into your house. If you don't feel comfortable hammering the rebar into the ground, call one of your utilities and ask them to come in and mark/spray where all the lines/pipes (gas, water, electricity, etc.) are located.

If you property is on a slope, that would explain why it puddles on that section plus the probavility of debris or concrete just under the soil surface.

Northen IL has decent soil, so drainage should be adecuade. Clay puddles easely, but not nice soil like you have.

BTW, nice job on what appears to be 1 inch grade level below the concrete.

What happened to your previous lawn? Why did it turn yellow and why did you decide to renovate?

Hi auteck,

I lost the battle against the weeds on the property beside me. It's just this year that they built a house and put sod. Sod was laid down August 15(seen on pic).

I'm sure there is no debris since I was there when it happened. I saw how they dug my dirt and also saw the new dirt they put. It was like 3-4 ft deep.

The lawn became yellow because I sprayed it with RoundUp. There were tons of weeds on my lawn and I gave up pulling them. It was really ugly.

The new seeds I put down are boutique, bewitched, blueberry and emblem.

I'm going out very soon to buy more topsoil. I would like to correct so I can seed that part again this weekend.

Thanks.

Good to know there's no concrete just under the surface...

Broadleaf weeds are not a reason to kill the entire lawn, unless you had little turfgrass of an old cultivar with mostly weeds. Weeds can be easely kill without harming the grass during the process. The main ingredient is 2,4-D, which can be found at most box stores under different names like Ortho Weed-B-Gon, for example.

I don't want to come across like I party pooper, but those KBG varieties are not very best. Boutique and Emblem are very good, but Blueberry and Bewitched don't perform well during the summer months due to disease. Look at these pictures:

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Auteck--Where were those pictures taken?

At what state was it tested?

Here is the ratio when I mixed them

15% - Boutique
31% - Bewitched
15% - Blueberry
38% - Emblem

Thanks for the fyi! :)

I hate it, this is what you get when you work in the dark. LOL. I thought I bought topsoil. It does say topsoil on the bag. I was wondering why it was so soft when I worked on it last night. This morning, I corrected the grading. I read the small label and this is what says, something like this "This is organic matter and is used for top dressing". I put down 9 bags yesterday. I mean 3 bags of real top soil and 6 bags of these friggin topsoil.

What should I do now?

You have a puddle because your entire hell strip is below the level of the concrete. It should be at the level of the concrete.

If you are still waiting for your grass to come in, and you have applied all that stuff already, I would keep my fingers crossed and hope the grass comes in NOW. Then next spring you can deal with the soil being below grade.

I'd leave the organic matter where it is. It will decompose over time so it won't help a lot with the level of the soil, but adding organic matter never hurts.

As David said, you'll need to get the level of the soil up. If you've already seeded and you cover with too much soil or top dressing, the seed won't germinate. If the grass is growing, you can raise the level gradually and let the grass grow through it.

Nope, I put a lot last night to level it. Most of the puddle went away. I was aware that the seeds that were covered by these org matter won't sprout. I was planning to seed tomorrow.

Here is what I was planning but not sure if it's good. remove some org matter that I put down and put real top soil. Or should I just keep it bare and work on it in spring?

Oh, I never saw any sprout on that area. There was always a puddle.

BP, I took those pictures back in August 12 at the NTEP site in Raleigh.

V1, can you give us an update on your renovation?

I'd like to see some pictures of your new turf...

hey auteck, nice to see you again. I was about to post a new question about pre-Ms but saw this thread. I'll post it later.

I took some pictures today. But before I took the pictures, I was really really really disappointed with the weeds. I went ahead and mowed even if the grass was only 1" tall. The weeds were about to drop the seeds and I didn't want that to happen. I had tons of Lamb's quarter and tallest I cut with manually was about 14" tall. I also have many velvet leaves and tallest was like 8". I have a huge area that was taken over by spurge. I'm not sure what to do with that. Hopefully, they'll get killed by frost. And many more unknown weeds. It is so disgusting!!! :(

I set the mower to 2.5" so that new grass won't be affected. Few grass that were shorter than 1" were affected by the push mower's wheel. I'll prepare the picture. I've been so busy with work. I was also trying to reply to my thread in www dot bestlawn dot info forum but not sure why I can't get in from home but works well if at work. Internet rules though at work is very very strick.

Anyways, I'll prepare the pics and post it later.

auteck here are the pics after I mowed. You can still see the weeds. But at least, I feel better now since I don't see those tall weeds anymore. LOL. :D

I'm still wondering why they're still only 1" tall. I fed them last Sept 14 with half dose of Turf Builder. 4 days after fert application, I saw browning/thinning of the lawn. I looked closely and found out that those 1/4"-1/2" tall seedlings weren't able to take the fertilizer well. It burned them.

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I saw about 1-2% of 2" grass today. :) Hopefully, we'll have more rain and sun. I was told that grass still grows until early November in our area. So my grass got more than a month for growth. :)

Don't worry about the initial slow growth. I think I read something once that the growth in grass is down first, then up, then out. In other words, it first works on establishing roots, then starts to grow blades, then starts to spread.

Awesome! :)

Thanks bpgreen!