Well, if you're looking for a short term fix to sell the house, I'd probably
patch it with top soil and lawn patch mix, the stuff that is seed + mulch +
fertilizer in one, and water it a lot. Can't guarantee any short term fix
though, good results will take some time.

Or you could just spray paint everything green!


"FGreen" wrote in message
om...
Timothy, thanks for the response.

Good day FGreen. Sorry to hear about your poor quailty lawn. It can be a
real bummer to have a weed patch instead of a lawn. Before we get too
far,
I have some questions:
What is the mowing hight of the lawn? 1", 2", 3"..?
What have you done in the past 6 years as far as fertilizer?
Do you water the lawn in the summer?
Do you let the lawn go dormant in the summer?
Have you ever aerated your lawn?
Do you re-cycle your lawn clippings (multching mow)?

mowing height depends - where there is grass, ~2-3", on bare spots,
0", on dandelion spots, 8+"... ha... sorry for being a smartmouth. I
try to keep it high enough to block the weeds, but the situation has
reversed itself.
We put fertilizers in the fall, once a year.
We water infrequently in the summer (to let it go dormant..?)
aeration hasn't been done since it was sodded (I know, a mistake)
Yes, we use mulching mower.
We haven't been very deligent about keeping it up, I have to say.

On to fixing the lawn..........
If the soil quality is poor, then I would start by trying to correct
that
first. You can compensate for poor soil quailty by using fertilizers and
multch mowing. Over time (possibily a long time) the soil quality wil
get
better. If the organic matter (humus) is very low, it would be best to
add
new soil / compost. If you find this is the case, then you could overlay
the lawn with compost and till it. Look at my post to FardinA on
5/8/2004
at 6:54 pm. I goes through the refurbishing of a lawn with costs and
tool
requirements.

Yes, I have read that post from you before posting my question. It
was probably the closest to what I was looking for and most helpful
post I found in search. The only difference would be, we already have
a lawn (weed lawn). Do I till it up, or just put new soil on top?
Do I need to use chemicals to kill the existing weeds?

My situation is, we're planning on selling the place, and want to make
the lawn look good in short timeframe. Don't have the time to wait
for seed to germinate, etc., because I need to act quickly once . I
don't want to spend too much money, but then I don't want do a
non-even-a-half-ass job like the builder did, either.

Is it ok to till up the existing lawn, add some soil, till up some
more, and lay down the sod, without adding any weed killers? Again,
there's quite a bit of weeds, but I'm trying not to use chemicals if
at all possible.

My lawn is ~1000-1100 sq.ft, by the way.

There is no need to hire out for this type of a job. The average home
owner can do this, although the amount of labor required may be too much
for some. If the lawn is somewhat large (1500+ square feet) then you
would
want to rent a tractor for the day. Rent one with a bucket on the front
and a tiller on the back. This can cost up to $300.00 a day, but it's
worth every penny. You can till the whole area in a few hours and the
bucket will make the huge pile of dirt spread a lot faster 80) .
I personaly would re-seed the lawn with locally available seed. This
means
seed for your area. Beware of name brand seed from big box stores. Just
because they sell brand X seed at home depo doesn't mean it's correct
for
your area.

More question etc... just add to this thread.

Posting this very late, so I might have left some questions out... I
really appreciate your help.