Filling low spots in my yard

[capnamerca]

I'd like to "top dress" my yard in a few spots - to fill a couple of low areas, and to help strengthen a couple of "weaker" areas of St Augustine. The best I can seem to find on the internet is people offering to do this for me, but I'd rather just hit up Home Depot on my own - I've got a rake and a wheelbarrow, so I"m good to go

. Thus - anyone know how to do this? What's the right kind of dirt, how much watering, how deep can I make the dirt, anything to watch out for, etc? Thanks!

 

[hullabelew]

A county agent in Georgia told me this was the best way to do it. He said that using straight sand makes for a week root system.

I used a mixture of 1/3 river sand, 1/3 top soil and 1/3 natures helper. I dumped some on every couple of weeks to gradually fill up the low spots over the course of one growing season.

I must mixed the stuff up in a barrel and each time after I mowed, I would spread out a wheel barrow load on each low spot. If you were trying to do a large area, this method might be a pain in the *** though. I just have about 5 sunken spots that I wanted to level out.

 

[grinder]

How much extra topsoil are you looking to add (area and thickness)? If your thickness is too great, you are better off to kill and till and old grass and resod after you add your fill because you will create a shelf layer between the new topsoil and the old grass. If your added thickness is only 1-2 inches, you should be OK.

 

[TheRealBizHorn]

If you're in Austin, you can pick up Lawn Leveler at the Natural Gardener. It's essentially the same mix that hullabew described.

 

[capnamerca]

grinder - it's a couple of holes from pulling bushes and weeds, and probably 25 square feet of maybe 1.5 inches of dirt. Sounds like I can just grab the "yard leveler" stuff from Natural Garden(er), and throw it out there and let it go.

Once again, HF comes through with flying colors. Thanks all!