S.D. wrote:
Hi all - I need some help here.

I just bought this rental house. There's a lawn in the back, and one of the
first things I did was the remove about half of it to make room for parking
2 vehicles.

When the contractor removed the sod, they piled it in the back area, not in
piles, kind of distributed, but definitely lumpy and bumpy. Much of the sod
is now growing and taking hold - which is ok.

I also have a rather large depression in one area where a truck was brought
in to remove and stump a tree. Plus a berm off the right that my neighbours
created.

I want to level this area out and have a lawn growing there. I'm thinking
of two possibilities:

1. Till up the back area where all the sod is and try to redistribute the
soil. My feeling is this would be a lot of work. The soil is clay.

2. Order up a truck of good quality soil and dump it in the back yard. Get
a bunch of friends and family to come over and help me distribute the soil
to fill in the depressions. This would involve putting soil right over the
growing grass - but then I would re-seed.

I'm favouring the last option. But my question is: would it work? Is this
just a crazy idea? would I have to roll the soil to compact it? What kind
of tools do I use to level the soil? Would this be more work than the first
option?

I'm commenting because I did option #2, likely to a lesser extent than
you. When I moved into this house, the back yard was bumpy and infested
with dandilions. Most of the grass was dead. I still have some weeds
although fewer, and the yard is still bumpy in some spots, but at least
I have live grass.

Of course, with a clay soil, you are likely to end up with a bumpy soil
anyway, because the worms don't have enough to eat. I understand the
way around that is to add compost, which leads to re-seeding.

Disadvantages:
You have to stay off the grass, and keep it moist for quite some time.
If I were to do this again, I would likely do it in small patches.
Otherwise, you have to resign yourself to not walking around it AT ALL
for the next month.

You will feed many fat little birds and will have to do a second
seeding.

You need a fairly large amount of soil to do a yard, and if you start
with one large single pile, as dump trucks are wont to do, it is
difficult to spread it evenly. You also have to ensure you have enough
for the entire yard. Or you end up like I did, with a fairly unbumpy
section at the back, and a bumpy section towards the house.

I think there are better times of year to seed than others too. Perhaps
someone more knowledgeable could comment, or the information might be
available through google.

Dora