# Leveling a fescue lawn.



## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

Here's a chronicle of leveling 18,000 sqft of fescue lawn.

I carefully read @Mightyquinn 's "leveling a Bermuda lawn"
And of course watched @wardconnor 's videos... and still managed to make mistakes/learn lessons.

First, shout out to my equipment





Freaking awesome hats by lawn rebel... great fitting shirt by Lawn Care Nut (I'm not affiliated with either they're just sweet gear).



This Honda rotary from 1983. It pretty much does not get maintained (except the blades) and always starts on one pull. Truly an amazing machine.



Also used a gorilla cart which has paid for itself, I can't say enough good things about it.

Next post I'll get to the leveling.


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## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

Day one (yesterday) was extremely and unnecessarily painful. I put roughly three times as much sand down on the first 1,000 sqft. I wasn't super concerned with putting down too much sand as I thought the drag mat/level lawn/landscaping rake would easily move excess sand.

I WAS WRONG. It was a major pain, and took pretty much the entire day rake the excess sand from the lawn , shovel it into the gorilla cart, and move it somewhere else.


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## wardconnor (Mar 25, 2017)

@CrackedCornCrack

Good Boy.....You have done well.

I have leveled my lawn like 4 times now using this process that you did. It really is so much work. Every time I have done this job, I have always thought that I put WAYYYYYY too much sand down. I have helped others with their lawn and thought the same thing. It ALWAYS comes out great. It does take some work to get it to work down to the soil layer but in the end the sand will disappear and you will be left with a better scenario than what you had previously. be patient and get out there every day and rake the sand. It will work its way down and you will be happy with the results.

I have said it before and I will say it again, leveling with sand is addictive. It is a slippery slope so be careful. The more flat you get it the better it looks.

Yes a lot of work... but you sleep great that night.

PS... that old mower is awesome.


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## craigdt (Apr 21, 2018)

Holy cow this looks exhausting.

How tall was your grass when you did this?


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## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

@craigdt , yeah this is a ball buster. It's an ongoing project, those pictures above are my front yard which I cut at 1".

I'm also doing My neighbors lawn which is at 2", and my back which is at APPROXIMATELY 0.5" @SwardEnthusiast is doing his front at 1.75

All of this is purposeful so y'all can see what works best for us. Those Bermuda/KBG guys have it easy as they can just cut super short...I think it'll be a little tougher with fescue.

Already, even on my 1" front the grass just lays down under the weight of the sand and it takes a frustrating amount of effort to work the sand in the canopy. I'll be working on this all day today and tomorrow... mor pictures incoming tonight.


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## 1028mountain (Oct 1, 2019)

Is sand the best way to level a yard? With sand? If so any specific kind?


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## corneliani (Apr 2, 2019)

How thick are you laying it down, approximately??


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## Ohio Lawn (Mar 20, 2019)

Thank you for posting this. I will be tuning in. I plan to do some sand leveling on my TTTF in the fall.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@CrackedCornCrack a water hose with a jet nozzle helps push it down more. Just another tip.


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## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

So the first step today was cutting the back, (roughly 10,000 sqft) @1.5" with a rotary and then cutting again at 0.5 with this beast:



My behind neighbor asked me, "why are you mowing like a pilgrim"

Then I core aerated with a tow behind aerator









Finally I dumped about 1/4 of the sand I'll need and knocked down the piles by slinging the sand around with a shovel and then pushing the remaining pile around with a landscape rake.

The rest of the day was spent putting sand in my neighbor's yard, continuing to help my front settle, and adding extra sand to low spots. I'll post pictures of That next.


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## Mtsdream (May 2, 2019)

corneliani said:


> How thick are you laying it down, approximately??


^this and over time how much would be too much? I have some spots that would take 3 inches to level.


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## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

This morning I used every rake I have, a level Lawn tool, a push broom, and a drag mat to get the sand worked further into the canopy of my front.



There's no sugarcoating it, this work sucks. It's physically pretty difficult and you only see a very small amount of change. That being said the difference between yesterday and today is massive so it's nice to watch the sand disappear over time.
(Side note, look at that sick stripe that the drag mat lays)

Here is a side by side of my neighbor's yard (left side of picture) cut @ 2" yesterday and mine(right) cut @1" yesterday. They received a similar amount of sand... I went slightly heavier in my yard



A couple thoughts on why his sand is settling better:

1. Rather than use a landscape rake/drag mat I slung the sand piles with a shovel to start. This helped disperse it better.

2.My lawn is much thicker... like almost too thick and the sand doesn't seem to want to fall into the canopy. The tools (drag mat, level lawn, broom) seem to slide right on top of the sand in my yard but the mix the sand into the grass in his yard.

3. We may have an equal amount of sand but the longer blades in his yard prevent me from seeing it.

Here's an example of my lawn thickness mowed at 1.75 sometime in feb




I have a side yard if KBG cut at .5" and the sand spreads SO MUCH EASIER there. I'm not sure if it's the HOC or the grass, more to follow tomorrow as I start spreading in the back.


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## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

@1028mountain , I believe sand is the best choice for leveling. There are a lot of resources out there on what type of sand, but generally you want fine sand, or "masons sand". My supplier made it pretty easy, he asked "do you want fine or course sand?"

Other folks can get like "5mm, double screened, kiln dried" super awesome golf course stuff. My local choice was "fine sand".

@corneliani , I'm shooting for 1/4-1/2 inch.... I didn't really calculate out how many sqft each gorilla cart would cover at that depth but you could do that for exact coverage.

@Mtsdream , for 3 inches you may want to cut the sod out, place top soil underneath and replace the sod.

If you'll notice in my backyard there is a large Reno patch where I planned to do just that... except I didn't rent a sod cutter. So I planned to shovel cut and roll about 100sqft of tttf turf on heavy clay soil.

My wife was like "you're an idiot" after about one hour of work I realized "I'm an idiot".

So I bought about 60 cubic feet(total) of soil, dirt, sand, and peat moss and put it on top of the existing turf and leveled it.

I seeded with fescue and transplanted some kbg but unfortunately it rained for like 3 weeks straight so the establishment has been less than ideal. That area will just get wrecked tomorrow and I'll reseed on top of the mess.

I don't think you'd want to just pile 3inches of straight sand in random places... it would cause drainage and nutrition inconsistencies that would probably be frustrating later on.

@g-man ... dude thank you so much for saying that. I did that with some success today but I was worried that it would.... like.... somehow redistribute the sand and unlevel spots which sounds completely ridiculous now as I type it out.


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## SwardEnthusiast (Jul 25, 2019)

@CrackedCornCrack you are a beast. A lawn leveling machine. I'm exhausted and haven't even started the sand portion of the reno in my yard. Steady work and patience is what I keep telling myself.


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## 1028mountain (Oct 1, 2019)

Cool thanks man, will look into this. Unfortunately I have fairly sizable valley which I imagine would take a shit load of sand to fill in. I did fill it in when sand/backfill when I had a concrete slab put in but that was simply out of convenience and necessity. Not sure if it did more damage or good.


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## Vtx531 (Jul 1, 2019)

Considering everyone is agreeing that this is backbreaking labor - allow me to say that I have two Turfco Metermatic topdressers I am trying to sell. One at $3000 and one at $4000.

Located in Southwest Michigan. Should fit in the back of a pickup truck for anyone who wants to make the drive or I can deliver for a fee. Message me for details.


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## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

Great plug @Vtx531 . I would buy it but my 3-4K range is already earmarked for a Swardman.

If any of y'all have the capital and plan on top dressing /leveling frequently that machine would be a Godsend


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## pure (Aug 26, 2019)

I tend to underestimate the amount of labor/time for big projects...yet sand-leveling my lawn has me paralyzed in fear.

Has anyone considered renting a ride-on sweeper? I'm imagining that the brush could make quick work of distributing the sand and that it would pull a sizeable drag mat to fine-tune the leveling. Day rates are manageable and the descriptions says "air-conditioned compartment for operator comfort."


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## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

@pure

Maaaaaan I'm the same way. If I think something will take an hour.... it usually takes 6-8. So I was pretty nervous about this undertaking.

You can watch @wardconnor 's video where he shovels 15 tons of sand in 3 hours............ I would not use that as your benchmark. That man is ALL THAT IS MAN. It took me THREE DAYS to shovel and spread 18 tons.... and for most of it I had help.

My neighbors and I probably shoveled 10 tons of sand today and it took 4 of us 5 hours.... and we aren't like.... couch potatoes.

Anyways, the brushing in is probably the worst part (all 4 of us would rather shovel sand into a cart vs. raking sand into the canopy) so that thing would probably be worth the cash.


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## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

[]https://i.postimg.cc/xjG1NmLF/1-D35262-E-5-FA8-47-AD-8-AA0-0404-D4336584.jpg[/img]



















Some before and after pictures of the backyard. We put roughly 9-10 tons of sand on 9-10k sqft.

Note: this isn't the finished product it got smoothed out quite a bit more. Also, I FREAKED when my fron had this much sand on it 2 days ago and now you can't even tell I put sand on the front and I wish I would have laid it a little heavier.

Tomorrow my wife works a 12 hour shift and I'll be single parenting so hopefully I'll be able to write out the steps I took for any who are interested.


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## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

@SwardEnthusiast used a sweet method of laying down sand (one of us raked it out of a tilted tow cart while the other drove pretty slow)which all but eliminated the "knock the pile down" step. The man is much smarter than me as evidenced by these pictures and I would guess that his yard was faster by 20 minutes per thousand sqft.


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## wardconnor (Mar 25, 2017)

nice work. The hardest part is transporting the sand. If using a wheel barrow or dump cart pulled by hand forget about it. I did it all with a 4 wheeler and a dump cart. The rest I did with the 4 wheeler and the drag that I made. It really is hard work but it is so rewarding.


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## Gilley11 (Nov 3, 2019)

With any decent project, you just have to be mentally prepared to just do it. Have a case of water sitting in the shade and some granola bars ready to go. Just get out there and gitterdunn.

Don't be scared of the work, be excited for the results.


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## SwardEnthusiast (Jul 25, 2019)

@CrackedCornCrack thank you for spearheading this massive project. I appreciate your help in knowledge and manual labor!


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## PostageStampLawnGuy (Apr 3, 2019)

So the grass will grow right through the sand? I have a lower area on my lawn I want to bring up - constantly being walked on by mailman.


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## CrackedCornCrack (Jan 25, 2020)

@PostageStampLawnGuy ,
Sorry for the late reply. Ideally some grass will be showing through the sand and after a few days of raking and working the sand will settle into the canopy of the grass


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## Fenste089 (Dec 31, 2020)

Why straight sand and not a sand soil mix? I am so nervous about going straight sand I have several large holes where trees were long ago. I was thinking of 50/50 sand/screened topsoil. Also I am going to do this in the fall, aerate, dethatch, cut down high spots with box blade, level, overseed, pray.


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## Cluelessone (Sep 23, 2020)

Now I feel like a sissy for kvetching about the 2 yards of topsoil I have loafing on the side of my driveway. Way to go, man! I think sand will be the next step for me, the ultra low spots I'm going to hit with the topsoil then sand in the spring/next fall.


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