Great work in ripping up the existing lawn! Roughly how long would you say it took you to do the work?

I've just re-seeded and re-soiled all the spotty areas on my lawn on Sat when it was dry. IIRC, there should be some drizzles this week, so I am hoping the rain will take care of the watering for me.

Fingers cross on how that'll turn out...

Good luck with the seeding and grading!

Time wise it wasn't too bad - I think it was probably 10-12 hours of labour to rip it out between my dad and I and then we hired a guy to haul it away for $200 (he claims it ended up weighing about 500kg which seems high).

It took some trial and error to figure out what the best way was to rip it out - as the sod was only 3.5 years old the netting from it was still there in some places so I started with just yanking by hand before progressing to a shovel then a pick axe as the roots got deeper and deeper (making yanking by hand too hard).

So the good weather meant I could finish the job finally. Tilled the yard to facilitate fixing the soil conditions (lime, lots of fertiliser), dug out a trench to put in a sprinkler system (found a huge rock while doing it too), ordered in 4 yards of top dressing (about 4000-5000lbs) that I had to cart to the back one load at a time and then redistribute and wrapped up yesterday with seed, grub killer, and more fertiliser.

The sprinkler works pretty well though I just barely get to the back left corner (testing didn't show this problem) - my house doesn't flow a lot of water (only 5GPM which is less than the 6GPM that Rainbird says is the minimum) so I'll probably just live with it as is - I otherwise would have to dig up the sprinkler and move it out another foot. I got a timer off Amazon and am watering every 6 hours for now.

Fingers crossed now that we'll have a functioning lawn come summer time.

https://i.imgur.com/qzViJe6.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/k0dTmex.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/HjxNNVK.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/3kMbE4n.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/stk77S7.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/fWVNiwI.jpeg

I wish I had seen this thread earlier but I am also redoing our front lawn this year.

The old lawn wasn't terrible but it was a mix of grass, weeds and moss and I thought having a nice thick lawn would be an improvement.

I've been leaning on my dad's advice for this. Our method is not very complicated. Time will tell how successful this becomes.

Step 1 - Apply some weed killer and mossout to burn off as much weed/moss as possible.

Step 2 - Power rake the whole thing, then clean off the clippings.

Step 3 - Applied new soil on top. Ordered a couple yards from headwater. Shared with the neighbours.

Step 4 - Seed with Scott's Turf builder. Then apply Scott's lawn starter.

Step 5 - Water 2x per day. Always keep the soil wet.

Step 6 - Cross fingers and toes. If this fails, wife will be upset.

https://i.postimg.cc/ry51R1mR/IMG-4526.jpg

Fuck got me wanting that watering system now even though typically those things are always disasters…

How do you purge it? Your lines are above the frost line so that shits gonna freeze if there’s any water left over. Just with compressed air or?

Nice work the base looks great now though no reason shouldn’t turn into a nice lawn by next summer

You blow them out with a big air compressor at the fitting on the side of the house. Either DIY or there's loads of people who will come around and do it fairly cheap.

There's a drain at the end of the line and with the slope of my yard I think that even if I don't do anything for it that it'll dry out by the time frost season shows up.

I commend you guys for the work you did on your lawns. I also redid my lawn from scratch 2 years ago, but I couldn't commit to the work it takes to keep it perfect so I just mow everything down now.

Once or twice a year i go through and rip out the dandelions, but my neighbours have so many other random ass weeds that fly over like spanish bluebells, creeping buttercup, horsetail, birdseye pearlwort, bindweed...

Compliments to you all. Ain't got time for the lawn with 2 young kids. Maybe in my next life time, or just the next house. Our backyard gets minimal sun due to being nestled between the house and the garage, and the garage is a story higher than the lawn.

5 weeks in and it's about halfway to where I'd like it. I'm using a seed blend with micro clover and wildflowers so it looks denser than it really is so far - it's still fairly patchy up close. I figure another month and it'll be a usable lawn (like I can put the bouncy castle out on top of it). I think I'll have to put a layer of sand on it in the fall to even out the bumpiness though as it's not settling very evenly so far.

https://i.imgur.com/TlyYi5o.jpeg

Holy that's looking freaking awesome!

Thanks! It seems to grow really well at night (or maybe I just stare at it too much during the day). The micro clover and wildflowers really change the look of it - up close it looks more like an "afro" than it does normal lawn but it feels really nice because of that density (it feels sorta plush). The blend is supposed to be both chafer beetle resistant and mostly drought resistant so I'm hoping it can survive the summer without turning completely brown. So far no crows or raccoons have returned so it seems like things are working.

https://i.imgur.com/gerNevF.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/iXFTRbG.jpeg

I spot fixed and overseeded my lawn with a micro clover/chafer beetle resistant fescue mix. It definitely reduced the beetle issue.

Where'd you get the seeds from? Thinking about getting some to crowd out my weeds

I got mine from Gardenworks Burnaby at Marine Dr and Nelson.

I ordered direct from West Coast Seeds (https://www.westcoastseeds.com/colle...lawn-solutions) but Gardenworks sells their product in smaller quantities. I used their Bee Turf since I wanted something more drought resistant.

The micro clover is only 10% of the seed mix for the bee turf and their chafer resistant blend but it grows in pretty thick relative to the rest of the grass.

Yea shit has been growing like crazy recently with the bit of rain then few days of good sun.

Some places I’ve over seeded that have a hard time growing in the past have completely filled in over the past month or so. I’m going to have to look into this clover mix though seems much more versatile long term especially if you don’t get the full sun on the lawn

7 weeks in and it's grown really tall - 7-9" tall in some spots so it was time for a cut. Because the seed blend includes wildflowers the lawn smells really great - it's fragrant and the bees love coming by. The micro clover does a really great job holding onto moisture - the leaves provide a lot of shade for the grass below so I can see why it's considered a drought tolerate blend. There's still a few dead patches which I won't address till the fall when watering restrictions go away.

https://i.imgur.com/wjcwHhA.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/6Et052X.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/hixqcNo.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/cIRQjTS.jpeg

What's long-term care for stuff like fertilizer and weed-killer like for that sort of thing? That looks exactly like what my wife wants our lawn to be.

The claim from the maker says:

"This blend requires less water, less fertilizer, and less mowing than conventional lawn grasses. It has better resistance to weeds and is unattractive to chafer beetles." (https://www.westcoastseeds.com/products/bee-turf)

As I understand it needs less water due to the clover leaf providing shade for the other plants while it needs less fertiliser because it naturally locks in nitrogen. Now that it's settled in I'm going to adhere to watering restrictions and see how it does.

It's not hardy for high traffic areas though - not a problem for me as the lawn will only be used during summer weekends (basically the bouncy castle comes out). I really like the texture of it - the diversity of plants works really well to make it feel "friendly".

Updates on bee turf? I want to plant it on my front slope this fall but I'm afraid it will look like a giant bush.

This is what it looked like a few days ago which was 3 weeks after I cut it down to 4" - it grew to about 10-12" in that time so very fast growing (not too surprisingly considering the weather lately). My wife described it as looking and feeling like a meadow, I call it pasture. The clover is definitely bigger than I expected - I've learned that "micro" doesn't really mean "micro". The canopy it provides means it does a great job retaining moisture - I can see why it's considered more drought tolerant and if I let it stay tall I'm sure I wouldn't need to water it at all (my clippings are almost soaking wet even after a week of dry days).

https://i.imgur.com/UtCE6Na.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/xJ5s5pi.jpeg

This is what it looks like as of yesterday after I roughly (I did it in a hurry) cut it down to 3" and after having kids play around it (with a bouncy castle on top). It's not a grass that holds up well to traffic (I knew that going in) but I'm going to spend more time keeping it regularly trimmed to 3" for the rest of summer to see how it looks when it gets a chance to be stable. Once Sept comes I'm going to let it grow out - I really like how it looks (and smells) when it's tall. The bees also love it.

https://i.imgur.com/XcuJakT.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/CMtEsWr.jpeg

Overall, I like how it has worked out. It's really nice to sit in, doesn't really need water, smells great, and looks nice when it grows out. It's not as traffic friendly as I'd like but I'm ok with the tradeoffs.

Sweet Jesus, that looks awesome!

Pretty happy with how my lawn turned out this year. It's definitely turned into a little hobby of mine and I am enjoying maintaining it.

Mid May, about 2 weeks after seeding
https://i.postimg.cc/L4t50h0G/IMG-4580.jpg

Mid June
https://i.postimg.cc/3x7cCf0P/IMG-4818.png

Early July
https://i.postimg.cc/CK5Jm3h6/IMG-4839.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/sgwwPjrh/IMG-4840.jpg

Late July
https://i.postimg.cc/SRh6F344/IMG-4957.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/KznTNfMH/IMG-5053.png

Today
https://i.postimg.cc/dVyVr1dW/IMG-5051.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/65T36zQx/IMG-5052.png

Overall quite happy with the result.

I can't help but think, you know you are old when...... :whistle:

I can't be bothered with my lawn right now, maybe in a few years when the kids are older.