How To Fix Hard Lumpy Lawn

Lawn Levelling The Tools Of The Trade

Now lets take a look at the equipment youre going to need to smooth out your turbulent lawn. I have a few personal favorites, but Ill list all your options, so you can decide for yourself which will be most useful to you.

• A hand rake Full-sized rakes are great and all, but sometimes you need to tackle smaller areas with accuracy, which is where the trusty hand rake comes in.
• A landscape rake Landscape rakes are used for spreading leveling materials over a wide area.
• A leaf rake If you dont want to fork out for a landscape rake, a leaf rake is a fitting substitute, but it will make the task at hand more difficult.
• A leveling rake This is my go-to cure for a bumpy lawn. Theyre used by greenskeepers to maintain the pristine playability of golf courses. Not only do they distribute leveling materials evenly in record time, they smooth out any clumps and filter out rocks.
• A push broom In the absence of a leveling rake, push brooms are precisely the tool you need to work a topdressing into the grass and down to the soil surface.
• A wheelbarrow Whatever leveling tool you spring for, youll need a decent wheelbarrow to mix and haul your leveling materials.
• A shovel For distributing topdressings.
• An edger This will help you straighten up any unkempt lawn edges.
• A lawn roller The lawn roller is another favorite of mine. Youll be using this to level out mild bumps in your lawn.

When Is The Best Time To Water My Lawn

The best time to water your lawn is in the early morning. The 2nd best time is RIGHT NOW! Watering in the morning is best because this allows the water to soak deep into the soil and allows the leaves of the grass plant to dry before the water evaporates as it gets warmer in the day. If you cant water in the morning, evenings are OK, just try to do it earlier! .

Check Your Roller’s Weight

You want to be sure you don’t select a tow-behind grass roller that’s too heavy for your mower.

If you own a powerful garden tractor or a commercial-grade zero turn mower, you might be fine using larger yard rollers.

If, however, you’re going to be using a lawn tractor or a consumer-grade zero turn mower, your roller should not weigh more than 300 pounds.

Also, it’s recommended that you avoid using tow-behind lawn rollers on hills with steep inclines greater than 10 degrees. Always be sure to tow your rollers across hills and not up and down them. The added weight of a lawn roller can make rolling on inclines challenging and possibly dangerous.

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Allow The Topsoil And Seed To Settle

Part of how to level a lawn with topsoil that many people miss is allowing the new soil to settle. To do this, thoroughly water the new soil, then leave it to settle for a couple of days.

After Watering the lawn, you can visually check the yard in a few days, and check whether it remains level and no settling or water pooling has occurred in unlevel or low areas.

If your sight check proves you have no pooling from water, youre probably good to go.

If not, though, you can add a bit more topsoil to any remaining low spots and level it out some more.

In no time, you will on your way to growing healthy grass and fortunately or unfortunately mowing it very soon!

Heres a Quick Video on How to Reseed A Lawn The essential steps for fixing a bumpy lawn:

Learn How To Restore A Lawn In Eight Simple Steps

Bare spots. Dead grass. Lawn full of weeds. Its enough to make you give up hope on ever having a beautiful green yard. But, with a little work and a few growing seasons, you can restore your yard into that plot of healthy green grass youve always wanted.

Ready to fix a weedy lawn and get your green grass back? Lets get started.

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How To Flatten A Moderately Uneven Lawn

Deeper lawn ruts and uneven spots can be fixed by the lift-and-refill method. Or in other words, the surface depression can be evened out by carefully cutting out and lifting the piece of green carpet over the indentation and sweeping some topsoil underneath. Be careful not to damage the roots too much when cutting and removing the low-lying sod. Place the turf back, fertilise lightly, if need be, and water.

Learn what lawn care solutions we offer by visiting our main website.

The Best Way To Repair A Lumpy Lawn That Has A Few Bumps

It is actually quite simple to fix lumpy grass issues and prevent them from reoccurring if you have a green thick and healthy lawn. A comprehensive lawn care program will do this for you, make sure that it includes:

• high-end nutrition components that thicken and fortify your grass plants,
• regular aeration to loosen the soil and lessen heaving,
• overseeeding to thicken the lawn and create a stronger more pest-resistant lawn,
• and proactive insect control for Grubs and Chinch bugs.

Spring is the best AND worst time for people worried about how to fix a lumpy lawn. The ground is soft and the grass grows quickly to cover any repairs, but snowmelt-saturated soil plus traffic on your lawn add up to new bumps. You can read more in our April checklist. There are tips to avoiding creating ruts from lawn mower wheels when you mow the lawn in our lawn cutting tips section as well.

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Question: Should I Roll A Bumpy Lawn

Is Rolling Good or Bad For Your Lawn? For many people rolling a lawn is the obvious way to flatten it out. While rolling is a widely used traditional method, it has some definite drawbacks.

The first issue: rolling will only smooth out small bumps and depressions, rather than more significant areas that may be more uneven.

Rolling a lawn also compresses the soil, which may be bad for the health of your grass. Think of it as the opposite of aerating your lawn to allow more oxygen and nutrients to feed grass.

So in our opinion, and on the whole, Rolling is not a good or effective way to smooth a bumpy lawn.

Aeration The Opposite Of Compacting A Lawn

Each year we do hundreds of aerations . This process does the opposite of what rolling will do. Aeration is good for a lawn, compaction is bad for a lawn.

Aeration is the process of pulling small plugs of soil out of the lawn which loosens up the lawn. All lawns should be aerated annually.

To fix a bumpy lawn, the best thing to do is to aerate the lawn. The process of aeration will help to create extra space for air, water, and nutrients to filter more easily into the soil. This process not only helps with the overall health of the lawn, but also encourages the bumpy areas in a lawn to even out and settle naturally.

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Read On And Learn A Few Things That You Can Do To Fix Your Bumpy Lawn Make It Lusher And Fuller Again

How Do I Flatten My Lumpy Lawn

If mowing your lawn is starting to feel like a rollercoaster ride, its time to take action. Lia Leendertz explains how to renovate even the lumpiest patch of grass

I have been helping my dad out in his garden recently, and he has been complaining of how lumpy his lawn is. I scoffed at first: who cares about a lumpy lawn as long as its green? Then I had to mow it. With dads old push mower it was a pretty bumpy ride, bits getting missed, the mower jamming into the humps and grinding to a halt in the troughs. It isnt actually down to his mower either: you may think that something modern and nippy like a hover mower would glide over such choppy seas, but no, the lumps in my own lawn get scalped every time by mine. A lumpy lawn makes for more hard work.

There are two solutions to this, one lazy and slow one back-breaking but instant. I think I may have talked dad into the lazy way, despite knowing in my heart that I really should just buckle down and do it properly. The lazy way is to just fill in the lumps, just like that. Get some soil from elsewhere in the garden, a cane to check the levels, and then fill in the gaps. Leave it a few days then top it up when it sinks. You could then sow with fresh seed, or you could just let the grass grow up and through. Either way, you are going to have muddy patches for a while, but it will sort itself out eventually.

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How To Level A Lawn

When it comes to mowing the lawn theres nothing more frustrating than trying to manoeuvre over lumps and bumps. A level lawn doesnt just look great and make for easier maintenance, it can have a few other advantages too.

For gardens with drainage and water logging issues, levelling and grading the lawn can assist in encouraging water flow away from your property, whilst allowing more water to be absorbed into the soil adding needed nutrients.

Erosion Causes A Bumpy Yard

Erosion is another reason why your yard may be bumpy. Erosion happens when there is not enough plant material attached to the soil, which in turn locks the soil in place.

So, if you have a bumpy yard because of erosion, it is more likely than not that the area didnt have enough grass growing in it and the area suffered erosion through runoff of rainwater. When the runoff happens it takes some soil with it, but unlike the water that will just keep going, the soil contained in the runoff gets caught in some grass further downstream.

That soil then accumulates in that area and before too many big rainstorms, you will have bumps forming. Grass will fill in and you will not notice it until you walk around the yard and notice how bumpy your yard is.

Fixing a bumpy yard caused by erosion is simple. You have two options: The first is that you can top dress your lawn. Topdressing your lawn is easy and the little tools that you need to do so are readily available at your local tool rental shop.

That is if you want to do it the easy and most effective way. If you dont want to rent the top dresser, be prepared for some hard work with a garden rake. Doing it this way will guarantee back soreness but you will get a good workout in. You will also need organic material or topsoil.

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How To Prepare The Lawn For Levelling

In order to decide on the best way to level a lawn, be it topdressing, lifting and refilling, or re-grading, you first need to, determine the extent of the issue and the possible root-cause behind the bumps and low spots on your turfed area.

In other words, it will be a waste of time to start filling in holes, while leaving drainage problems unaddressed.

So, youll need to fix things first and, in some cases, eliminate the reasons, whether its pruning exposed tree roots, applying an anti-pest product or digging out buried items and stones before moving on to the actual lawn levelling task.

Also, its a good idea to water the lawn a few days ahead of the job, if necessary, to ensure that youll have an easy time making the amendments. The soil needs to be workable, which means it shouldnt be too dry or overly wet.

Preparing To Level Your Lawn

So if your lawn is looking uneven with a few too many dips, help is at hand. Before starting, the lawn will need to be checked thoroughly in advance to determine how much will require levelling and if there are any existing drainage problems. At times, uneven ground can be caused as a result of drainage problems or even damaged water pipes.

Check for low spots and drainage issues

If low spots are occurring in locations around water pipes seek professional advice before continuing. If drainage issues are discovered, it is recommended to re-grade the lawn as well as levelling, creating a surface that slopes away from the property to aid drainage and avoid flooding.

Alternatively an underground drainage system can be fitted using either gravel or flexible drainpipes. Other causes for bumps and hollows can be due to wear and tear, mole damage, drought or frost.

There are two main methods for levelling a lawn depending on the extent of damage to the area. All low spots across the garden should be checked for depth to help decide which method will work best. Both methods will require the same mixture used when top dressing a lawn.

This will consist of two parts sand, two parts topsoil and one part compost. These combined will fill out the desired areas whilst improving drainage, with the compost allowing for a nutrient rich soil to be formed.

Pre-water your lawn for levelling

When to level your lawn

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How To Flatten A Lumpy Lawn

We’ve all experienced a lumpy lawn. Walking across one feels like walking on rocks and stepping in potholes.

Seasonal temperature changes and dogs digging holes are major culprits. Whatever the cause, it’s not fun to roll your ankle. So how do you get your yard nice and smooth?

Instead of digging out lumps and filling in holes, there’s a much easier way to smooth out the bumps on your yard.

Lawn rollers are heavy cylinders that are attached to an axle and either towed behind a garden tractor or pulled by hand to smooth topsoil and flatten out bumpy or irregular yards.

They’re often used when seeding a new lawn as a way to press the seeds into the topsoil and improve the germination process. They’re also commonly used to press freshly laid sod into contact with the soil beneath it.

What About Ants Mounds And Earthworm Castings

Ants mounds. Miniature mounds, all over your lawn, can be the doing of colonies of tireless ants. We dont recommend just disturbing their homes unless you deal with the insects, first. You can use food-grade Diatomaceous Earth, which is not toxic and wont damage the surrounding grass, but will kill the ants. Once done, level out the pile of earth and distribute it evenly over the grassed surface.

Earthworm castings. Worms that live in the soil feed on plant matter and earth minerals. They excrete what theyve ingested in the form of castings, which are full of nutrients. You can safely flatten these castings and spread the earth evenly with a rake onto as large an area as possible. You see, the concentrated nutrients in the earthworm castings may burn the grass if distributed only over the immediate spot.

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Getting Rid Of Lawn Lumps

Subtle lawn lumps can be rectified by topdressing around them. The big bumps that catch on the bottom of your mower call for bigger interventions.

Take a very sharp knife and cut a huge H shape in the lawn. The up and down lines of your H should run either side of the bump, the crossbar needs to be right across the middle of it.

Youve created two flaps, starting in the middle of the bump, peel each flap backwards. Use your knife to sever the grass roots but leave as much soil as possible attached to each turf.

Remove excess soil and check the level. Return the flaps of turf to their original position, and but the edges up together. You may need to trim them to fit. Water well and keep the soil moist until the grass has rooted back in.

To check for rooting, tug on the plants. If the whole sod lifts up, the roots arent quite ready for you to stop watering. If you get a handful of grass, your work is complete.