Also, I use a reel mower and cut at 1"

I use corn meal and alfalfa pellets from my feed store in Grapevine. I also use baby shampoo and molasses a couple of times a year as well milogranite spring and fall...

But you are saying that play sand will work? I can get playsand right up the street but was hesitant because of my slope, it doesn't bind as well as masonry sand, and the bleaching, bad for grass, I read about.

planned on scalping and was going to aerate as well.

Thank you!

Isn't your soil soft(er) from the shampoo? If it is soft, then why aerate? Remember what I wrote about 1/4-inch clods in topsoil, if you aerate you'll have 3/4-inch clods. I don't see any reason to aerate.

If you're worried about the sand, look in the yellow pages for 'materials suppliers.' Generally that topic refers to suppliers of dirt, compost, sand, rock, brick, and other landscape materials. See if they have something you like. Surely Grapevine should have masonry or builder's sand.

Thats why I am coming here... to ask. I have watched a couple of videos on youtube and some people aerate, clear or break up the plugs and then top dress then sand level.

So you think I should pass the aeration and just sand?

I have called around and to get the amount of masonry sand I need, its very expensive. Play sand however, cheep and right up the street. So if you are telling me play sand is okay... I am okay.

So is play sand okay for leveling?

Its hard for me to tell that the baby shampoo has softened my soil. I am going to do the soil test and post here.

Thank you.

Okay I think I understand. You should not need to aerate for this project. There are a few good reasons for aerating, but usually the shampoo does what people think the aeration should be doing. Test the soil hardness with a screwdriver. See how far you can stick it into the soil.

I use play sand in the yard. I have not used it for leveling, per se, but the bag of topsoil I got seems to have plenty of play sand in it. I'm essentially leveling with that topsoil. I mixed in 10% compost and poured it into a hole. I'm up to about 5 gallons of soil into that hole and it needs a lot more to clear up the profile. And it is on a slope.

If anyone is confused about comments about "my yard," I have two houses and just sold a third house a few weeks ago. Sometimes I talk about them interchangeably. The house I just sold had very tall St Augustine. The house I just bought has weeds, a slope, and holes in it. The lawn at the house in San Antonio is in pretty good shape but needs some corn meal to fix a disease issue.

2 things I will add:

1) Compost or other organics, while good to add to your soil, are not good for top dressing. They will break down quickly undoing (to some degree) your leveling. Sand basically doesn't .

2) Core aeration before top dressing is fine, but realize it will require more work and more sand. If your primary goal is to level the yard, skip the aeration.

I've been wanting to level my yard for a couple of years now but have also had trouble finding a vendor for masonry sand. Actually, I've found a couple but they only sell in enormous quantities that I don't need. I've read many times on here that play sand is bad for lawn leveling but never really understood why.

Dchall, if you really believe regular play sand works then that's great news for me as that is pretty much found anywhere.

If you look at the sand under a microscope you'll see that play sand is rounded particles. Rounded sand will never interlock and form a solid base...or so they say. Whereas masonry sand is not rounded. It has edges (facets). The edges can interlock and become more firm than play sand ever will...or so they say. I have seen masonry sand under a microscope and it looked just like play sand to me. Now when I back filled a washed out area in my back yard I used what amounts to play sand. After 23 years you'd never know it was sand unless you started digging in it. It has the nicest grass on the lot. In fact you can see a distinct line in the grass where the backfill sand ends and the native soil begins. The grass on the sand is much nicer. Oh and it's 9 inches deep at the deepest part and then feathers out to zero inches about 20 feet away. When you dig in that sand it looks black with sparkly white pieces. The sparkly stuff is the sand. The black is the organic matter. When you toss that soil into a jar the white white sand sinks immediately to the bottom and the black stuff all floats to the surface. But when you dig it up it looks very dark.

That paragraph all refers to my San Antonio yard. In my Bandera yard I have a slope with holes in it. I'm using generic bagged topsoil mixed with 10% generic compost to fill the holes. One hole is going to take more than a bag. I didn't realize it was that deep, but I did almost turn over a riding lawn mower in that hole. The point is that when it rained on my filled hole, the soil washed down and formed a sandy level spot. I had the soil profiled to match the slope, but now it's a perfectly level spot. I'm waiting for the weeds to grow up over the spot before putting more soil on it. The weed roots will help stabilize the spot so the next soil I drop there should hold to the slope better. It'll get there. Patience is key to fixing some lawn issues.

So I would go ahead and use play sand. Know that on a hill side you might not be able to "level" it all at one time.

Thanks Dchall. I guess if it works then it works and that's really all that matters.