# JacO's Lawn Overhaul Attempt



## FairwayJacO (Apr 9, 2020)

Hey guys!!

Buckle up cause this is going to be a long intro post! I apologize in advance.

Brand new member here. First and foremost, in my current state, I consider my self to be an extreme novice when it comes to yard work... So please, go easy on me.

My wife and I just moved into our first house a little under a year ago on the west side of Washington state and so far I have really only done minor weed pulling, yard edging, and tree trimming. Our lot is roughly 9,600 sq ft. The front lawn and the immediate back lawn are relatively low maintenance, but the deep back lawn is out of control, and the green belt that we live on is starting to take over our little wire fence.

This thread is basically going to be me documenting my battle with my yard and asking for a lot of advice along the way!

Long story short, I have a thousand plans of what I want to do this summer and many to come. I will list the major items that I want to tackle this summer below:

- Remove young trees P.O. planted next to RV parking in raised garden bed, attempt to replant
- Extend RV Parking
- Attempt to remove and replant young apple tree
- Landscape immediate back yard
- Dead tree removal in deep back yard
- Weed/re-sod or seed the deep back yard
- Stump Removal in deep back yard (x6 or 7)
- Landscape the areas around the garden beds
- Landscape around the big trees and fruit trees
- Landscape entire perimeter of property

Now that I've put this list together, this seems like a ton of work for one season, you tell me...

The first thing I am focusing on, and I may be wrong here, is removing all of the weeds from the deep back yard. So far, I have been doing it by hand and it is veryyyy slow going. I have a little Fiskar hand weed puller and a straight tip shovel that I have been using. I want to keep it as natural as possible cause my wife plans on having a garden and utilizing all the food we grow, and because of that we're not very keen on harmful chemicals. I also would like to avoid machinery, I know, not making it easy on myself... Any tips are welcome! :?

My current plan is to pull the weeds by hand and save as much of the good soil as I can. Afterwards I want to lay down weed block, put a blend of top soil and small rocks on top of it, and then cover the rest with straight top soil. Then I either want to lay down sod or experiment with seed, but I'm leaning more towards sod since it seems easier.

Anyways, I'll cut to the chase and post some pictures and see what you guys recommend...

Here you can see the difference between immediate back yard and deep back yard, not sure how else to put it  These are also some of the trees I would like to outline and landscape underneath.









This is about what 99.99% of what I call the "deep back yard" looks like on the surface.









And heres what the outer rim of our yard looks like as well as our dead tree...  









I pull the weeds by hand like this and beat the good soil out of them and throw them in the bucket, or wheelbarrow...









A lot of the little stringy roots like this are left behind... I try to get as many out as possible, but its impossible to get them all with this strategy. Is it ok to leave some of these stringy roots in the soil?









Here's my progress so far. I got a little further today, the holes probably twice the size now. I started in this particular spot because it was a low spot that I've been wanting to fill in forever. 









Ok, for now I will shut up and reply to any one with suggestions and/or carry on as laid out above.

Lay it on me!!


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## BobRoss (Jul 3, 2019)

I'm no expert here, but there is no way I would be pulling all those weeds by hand. If you can do that all manually, that is impressive. I would also think leaving the roots are risky.

If you are going to sod, couldn't you just roundup everything in that area?


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## FairwayJacO (Apr 9, 2020)

BobRoss said:


> I'm no expert here, but there is no way I would be pulling all those weeds by hand. If you can do that all manually, that is impressive. I would also think leaving the roots are risky.
> 
> If you are going to sod, couldn't you just roundup everything in that area?


I know, it does seem a little crazy and impossible to achieve, but time flies while I'm out there getting it done, and what better time than now haha.

You mean the round up weed killer? I bought some a long time ago and never used it. I'm just concerned the roots won't actually be killed and I'll just be planting grass on top of a bunch of weeds. I think the stuff I bought claimed it was "safe" for humans.


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## Vtx531 (Jul 1, 2019)

Is this April 01 or 10?!


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## JimFromLawnGuyland (Jan 15, 2020)

Round up (glyphosate I'm assuming that's the one you have they make many different products) only kills on green actively growing plants. I'd just weed wack it to keep it clean until you finished grading and removing trees, the more soil you expose will invite more weeds.


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## Fitz (Apr 6, 2019)

First off, welcome to the forum! I'm new to this but figured its fun to talk turf with all the other lawn geeks on here. Defininately a wealth of info.

I feel your pain as my previous yard was somewhat similar to what you're dealing with. The conditions in your "deep" back yard might be due to all the shade from the trees you are mentioning removing? Generally trying to grow good grass in heavily shaded areas is tough! That said, my suggestion is get the trees you want to remove gone first. The removal, associated equipment and chunks of wood hitting the ground are going to do damage so get that activity out of the way first, then pending your results (hoping for more sunlight on the site) will give you a better opportunity to be successful growing grass (seed or sod) when you are ready. Plus, you will have firewood on hand and perhaps want to site that outdoor fire pit you weren't thinking about!

I understand your desire to not use chemicals for weed control especially since you will be spraying (what looks like) a large area, and even after killing, the material needs to break down, etc. This may sound like an even crazier idea but one thought would be to rent a mechanical sod cutter, set it to 1" or so in depth and after marking out your tree rings (where you will landscape with mulch, bark or other material) sod cut the remaining weedy area and dispose of that material. We used to do this on the golf course to strip areas quickly for cleaning up. You'd be amazed that even though you aren't cutting sod, the material holds together fairly well and can be shoveled up at a consistent depth. Then you can dispose of the junk. Basically make a pile somewhere on your property in a corner to dump this material that you don't want. You can tarp it as well to begin the long process of composting it. Granted, I know zero about composting but just like all living things, weeds need food, water and sunlight to grow. Remove some of those factors and you'll have the upper hand. Don't worry about shaking all the soil out of it, just get the sod cutter through it, spear it with shovel to break into manageable pieces and get it out of there. You want to get on with the fun part of adding to your landscape and not having to turn around again to re-weed a section you started with months ago. You're also bringing in topsoil so don't worry about having to save some native dirt.

You mentioned laying down weed fabric then soil/rock and topsoil. I would hesitate in doing so because if you want to grow grass and weed fabric will act as a rooting barrier and you'd have to haul in quite a bit of topsoil to cover the weed fabric to a depth where it would pose less of an issue. Just my two cents on that. 
Finally, whether you decide to seed or sod is ultimately up to you. Seeding is far less expensive but does require extra care with seed bed preparation (soil pH, starter fertilizer, raking in seed, topdressing) diligence about watering, weeding, filling bare spot patches in and overall patience after germination. Also, pending the amount of shade on your site you might be better off sodding rather than trying to get seed to grow in the shade. Although you might see a decline in some of the sod, at least you've started with a full stand of grass.


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## FairwayJacO (Apr 9, 2020)

Vtx531 said:


> Is this April 01 or 10?!


I know right :dunno:



JimFromLawnGuyland said:


> Round up (glyphosate I'm assuming that's the one you have they make many different products) only kills on green actively growing plants. I'd just weed wack it to keep it clean until you finished grading and removing trees, the more soil you expose will invite more weeds.


Thats a good point! And I did buy some round up at one point, but then my wife talked me out of it because our active garden beds are literally right next to this portion of the yard, and we dont want to use those potentially harmful chemicals nearby consumables.



Fitz said:


> First off, welcome to the forum! I'm new to this but figured its fun to talk turf with all the other lawn geeks on here. Defininately a wealth of info...


Thanks man!

And that is some absolutely great information! Thank you. This confirms a lot of what I was thinking over the last few days. I was thinking of using a rototiller to achieve similar results as your sod cutter recommendation. I was thinking of getting all the stumps out, and then running over the entire stump free area and raking all the weeds out, laying down new filler dirt and top soil, and then seeding. I am just worried about weeds getting all mixed into the soil below as part of the tilling process. I too have decided that a weed block is a bad idea BTW! 

I have made quite a bit of progress already, having nothing better to do in quarantine than yard work!! Speaking of, I hope you all are safe and healthy.

So far I had my best friend come over and climb this tree and cut it down a couple week ends ago, Before and afters below:

Dead tree










No more dead tree!


















Lots of fire wood though... Been a while since I have swung an ax I'll be honest!

While he was cutting that tree down, I was simultaneously digging out a smallish stump, first one ever! Not so bad.

It was this little stump










I dug it out pretty good, cut sections out of it with a chain saw, and not pictured, I smashed it to bits with a maul so its practically non-existent now.










I can't stand being away from golf for this long, so I had to make some online purchases and set this up in the mean time. Bonus, I think I gained some extra power chopping all that wood!










And finally, I have moved onto the latest project, what I am calling Monster Stump 2020. This thing looked so horrendous. It got ten times worse under the surface! Here's my progress so far. Hoping to have it completely beat to hell by this weekend.


































Other than that, does anyone know of anything that I can use to naturally kill this portion of the lawn and weeds? My wife brought up the fact salt could do the trick. Any of you guys have any experience with that? And or other methods that have worked well?

Thanks all!!


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## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

I don't remember the exact recipe, but I think vinegar/salt with a little dish soap as a surfactant can do a number on many plants/weeds. There are plenty of cocktails on the internet/YouTube. Also, horticultural vinegar is stronger and I think I'm missing an ingredient. The only problem with looking to reno the area is that you will need to flush the salt out, first. "Burn Out" is one of several non-selective organic weed/grass killers on the market. You might want to check out the Organic section on TLF.

There's always fertilizer burn to kill everything, if you want to pour it on. It's not really a good way to do it, but at least any residual can be used by the new seedlings.

Even though it's a shady area, you can also try solarizing it with covering it with plastic. This usually works best in full sun, towards the middle/end of the summer, when everything is pretty much cooked, anyway.


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## FairwayJacO (Apr 9, 2020)

Chris LI said:


> I don't remember the exact recipe, but I think vinegar/salt with a little dish soap as a surfactant can do a number on many plants/weeds. There are plenty of cocktails on the internet/YouTube. Also, horticultural vinegar is stronger and I think I'm missing an ingredient. The only problem with looking to reno the area is that you will need to flush the salt out, first. "Burn Out" is one of several non-selective organic weed/grass killers on the market. You might want to check out the Organic section on TLF.


That sounds like something I would be willing to try, thanks for the heads up! I will have to do some further research. Getting the salt out sounds like it could be troublesome haha.


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## uts (Jul 8, 2019)

Why not rent a stump grinder? 100 bucks and you would go through most of them in a few hours. More time to do other things.


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