Getting rid of a bumpy 4 acre yard

[jsburnside]

After 28 years my 4 acre lawn is filled with ruts about 1 to 3 inches deep. Mostly the result of weather and use. Needless to say that mowing the yard is a very bumpy task and makes the task take a lot longer then before. I use a commercial JD zero turn that should let me mow quicker except for the ruts. I have a JD 2305 compact deisel. I really don't want to start all over by removing the grass and using a box blade, land plane, or soil roller, all of which I don't have and can't rent. I do have a 48 inch rotor tiller that would work except it would get rid of the grass which I'm trying to avoid. I'm thinking that just putting down a soil / sand mixture would be the ticket except I can't find any suppliers that have say a 50/50 mix. Getting top soil and sand delivered is do able, but mixing the two would be quite a job. It would take quite a bit of material to fill the ruts, and then drag it out. Any thoughts on how to level a 4 acre yard without starting all over from bare soil would be greatly appreciated. Northeast Ohio weather can be cruel at times.

 

[JJT]

You've lived with it for 28 years, bite the bullet and till up an acre a year. In four years you'll have a nice level yard.

 

[JasperFrank]

My standard birthday present, is now 14 cubic yards of screened dirt.

 

[2manyrocks]

Some might suggest renting a skid steer with a power rake.

I also think there is a lot of merit in the suggestion to do 1 acre a year instead of trying to do it all at once.

 

[dirttoys]

Some might suggest renting a skid steer with a power rake.

I also think there is a lot of merit in the suggestion to do 1 acre a year instead of trying to do it all at once.

so this is absolutely the correct answer, once you get passed the idea of trying to save the grass.

I would say to kill it all at once. The idea of doing it in sections sounds good, but, seems i always tear up good getting to the work, and then always have edges to deal with.

Get the skid, harley and smooth bucket, and kill it in a weekend. Or suspension seat for the lawn mower

best,

ed

 

[BravoXray]

I have the same problem in my back yard, only for the last 40 years. I have had a couple of large rollers, one was a 60" wide and weighed 900 lbs full of water, that I used to try to smooth it out, but only mashed down the tops of the worst of the ruts, but left the ruts themselves.
I have been toying with the idea of dumping topsoil in the low areas and using a 12 foot long piece of 6" H-beam I have, pulled behind my BX to level it out, working in a figure 8 pattern to get it distributed.

 

[zepsherlock]

Maybe get some screened topsoil, and spread/top dress the worst areas, then a piece of chainlink fence as a drag harrow to smooth but not destroy the grass? I'd say it's worth the cost of a 6' section of chain link to test if it'll mess the lawn up.

 

[chim]

I would like to have a couple areas smoothed out, but they haven't bothered me enough to do anything beyond dragging a 24" diameter concrete-filled pipe roller along home one Spring while the yard was soft (no effect).

One thing I considered was getting screened topsoil and spreading it as some have recommended. My thought about that is that it seems that approach could take a number of applications. If the screened topsoil id just sort of screeded off, the material that is deposited in the low spots won't be compacted. Won't that settle and require more applications?

 

[LD1]

Try rolling it when its wet enough for a roller to actually work. Rolling in combination with aerating can smooth a "bumpy" lawn.

You can only roll/compact the soil so much then you have issues. Grass struggles, and a roller becomes less and less effective as it compacts. Aerating (CORE aerating) removes plugs....reduces compaction.....and gives voilds and places for the ground to move/displace for the next time it becomes moist enough to roll it.

But beyond that.....or manually trying to fill a few ruts.....there is nothing that is gonna do much good. No drag, or H-beam, or light pass with a tiller, or chain link. NOTHING is gonna give desirable results for effort.

Get over killing the grass. Kill it, level it, reseed it/ Thats if core aerating and rolling dont work.

But if you dont have the equip.....gonna spend as much on core aerating and rolling than you would renting a skidloader and harley rake

 

[skipmarcy]

I just re-covered my slightly sinking field lines in my front yard after 16 years - my lines are the 10" pipe type so were fairly large ditches. They had sunken just a few inches over the years as they settled but made it more work to cut the grass to match the rest of the yard.

I had to make a larger swale along my driveway ditch this spring and used the dirt from boxblading that to dump on the 2, 100' sunken lines. I adjusted my boxblade back a little (lengthened the toplink) and bladed the dirt out just fine with virtually no damage to the existing grass. 3 months later now and you can't tell it ever had work done to it - grass has re-grown thru the new dirt and all is smooth again, even with one of the driest Julys we've had around here.

I used my 4110, in 4 wheel drive, with loaded R4 rears and did not cause any damage to the yard and my hydraulic toplink made adjustments on the fly easy to manicure the dirt. In the past I have repaired quite a few rough yards for people with just my tractor with loader and a cheap, light duty boxblade. Didn't have to tear the place up and try to rebuild it all with terribly expensive equipment.

 

[John0829]

I mow a little over 6 acres and all of it hill, stub yer toe at the house and pick yourself up at the bottom of it, anyway I have ruts and holes cause by moles. Must be an army of them. Sometimes it is like driving over plowed ground and the problem is everytime it rains it washes out some of the runs, since we do not seem to get a nice gentle rain anymore only flash floods and down pours. Using the box blade or disk and drag to smooth out problem areas does no good at all since they just work it up again and then the rain comes and the ruts are back.

Like the others I would fix an acre at a time, before you know it you will have it. Plus you might not need to fix ALL 4 acres there are bound to be areas that are reasonably smooth you can leave alone.

 

[stevem5215]

Buy a new mower with suspension. You won't even notice how bumpy it is then. That's what I do here. These fields used to be plowed and dug out and leveled badly but not a problem with a full suspension ZTR mower.

 

[mred2]

Where I purchase sand, they will mix sand and topsoil together before you get it.

 

[Halftrack]

Reprint from a similar thread:

I have another suggestion but it is VERY moisture (rain) dependent. I have used it to some sucess on my ground, but only if I get the right rainfall. After receiving 1.5" or more of rain, I will aerate the ground with a hollow tine (plug puller) aerator, similar to this:

https://www.equipmentfacts.com/list...95.1747824252.1659310174-244332894.1632942696

The aerator I use is just under 5' wide, 10 wheels, and 16 spoons per wheel. I hit the area twice with the aerator, leaving about 18 holes per square ft. Then hope for more rain for those holes to absorb water and hit with the roller. Even with that many holes per square ft, it doesn't seem to bother the grass. The sod becomes a big sponge and moves with the roller after being "tenderized".

 

[Tinhack]

Unless you play golf on it, what does it matter. It's just a yard. My front yard is about 20 acres. I mow it with a tractor and rotary or flail mower depending on height of the grass/weeds. If it doesn't get done this year, I'll look at it again in the Spring.

 

[JasperFrank]

Last year, we went.. "we are going to solve this" poor terrain on 2 acre of lawn..
Dug out all the large rocks. Then ordered many, two unit filled trucks to bring up screened soil. Got to know all the drivers by name. It was expensive.
Then dumped the dirt in various areas, with the 1220 Ford FEL, tractor with a box scrapper. It took all summer. It is better, but not as better as I would have expected as the following year, new large rocks percolated up, and the dirt didn't seem to solve the stump holes. I can't commit another $4,000 dollars. Some land just can't be solved.

I was very surprised at the honesty of Lane Forest Products, of Springfiled Oregon. In that when they saw me ordering huge amounts of Loam and Sand. They suggested I just go with the suppler that they got stuff from: Eugene Sand and Gravel. The difference wasn't all that much. And Lane F P supports local theartre. So I've stayed with the second tier provider, Lane Forest Products, and once a driver showed me exactly how to fix my tractor, saving me 1,200 dollars.

I guess this is a plug, but good local companies should get a high five, once and a while that are not advertisers on TractorBYNet, which is international.

 

[paulfun9]

Once I figured out the proper adjustment on my suspension seat my zero turn handles most of what I thought would need fixed.

For the rest hubby will get a Honey do list like he never saw before! and directed to this tread.

Janet

 

[AndyMA]

When I face a lawn like that I topdress with screened loam, rake out an then roll

Andy

 

[DaBear3428]

i have been digging out my pond and just take a few buckets of spoils every weekend and back drag it over the worst of the ruts, tends to fill the rut and then i hit it with a hose to wet it down and flow into the voids left over, 2 weeks later the rut is full and the grass has recovered the new soil.

 

[kthompson]

My suggestion to you is go to youtube and look at the guys bringing in dirt and filing in the low places. To me the depth of the rut or holes is not an issue to fill in and level, it is high spots that need to be lowered which means the grass is going to be removed period there. Look at several jobs as with anything else you will see people who know what they are doing and those who have no idea what they are doing. Don't miss the point of cutting grass very short before covering with dirt so it grows back quicker. If it were me, and I have a good grass in my yard would never kill it with herbicide or machine. But if you time it right with right weather depending on the type of grass you have you may not totally lose it with a tiller if not tilled too much. Some grasses such as Bermuda can come back as much Bermuda is sprigged to begin with. Same with centipede and some zoysia varieties. Sprigged grass here will give much better success than seeded new.