- In all my previous
videos on top dressing I've always leveled the
lawn using a mixture that contained sand of some sort. Now, some of you guys reached out to me and wanted to know what kind of results can you expect to get if
you were to level your lawn using purely organic material? You also wanted to know
if aerating the lawn is strictly necessary
as part of the process? Now, I've never done
that combination before, not aerating and using
pure and organic mix. So today we're gonna find out. Today I'm going to level a part of my lawn using pure and organic mix, no aeration, and just to raise the difficulty factor, we're gonna be doing it on a slope. Let's get started. The section of my lawn we're
going to be working on today for the leveling work is the front lawn. Now, it's got quite a slope and if you've looked
at my previous content, you know that every time
I've leveled the lawn, I've always aerated and
always used a mixture of sand of some sort, because
we're beginners, you know, renting an aerator can be
kinda hard and challenging. You have to figure out some
kind of way to get it home. You have to get it out
and just wrestle with it. It's just harder. As well as getting sand in bulk can be kind of more challenging. What we're gonna do today
is a very basic route. I think you're still gonna get
a pretty good result with it using purely on organic mixture. Now be sure to keep watching because I'm gonna do a
complete cost breakdown of what everything costs to
do this section of the lawn. And I'm also gonna share a bonus tip that's really useful for when
you're working on a slope. With that, let's get into
tools you're gonna need. Now, because we're not aerating the lawn, you're really only gonna need
one tool that I recommend for pulling this off. And that's a solid leveling rake. Now, unless you've top
dressed of your lawn before or leveled your lawn before, you likely don't have one of these guys, but they're super useful
and I highly recommend you pick one up before
attempting something like this for two reasons. One, a leveling rake can
almost act like a shovel of some sorts from a
standpoint of being able to just move material around
the lawn nice and easily. And then second, for working
the material into the turf and getting a nice even coverage, it's really hard to beat a leveling rake. That's especially true when
you're working with an area like a slope, because you
really don't wanna go too heavy on a spot like this,
because, again, too much, you're gonna end up having
runoff issues when it rains, you really wanna do a nice light coat. Now in a pinch, you can
use one of these guys. This is a groundskeeper rake and you can tell it's got
a serrated edge on one end and a straight edge on another end. You can use this with decent results but I highly recommend
that if you're gonna go through all the trouble
of leveling your lawn, go ahead and spring for a leveling rake because it's gonna do a
much, much better job. Now let's talk about the
mixture I'm gonna be using. Now, because I figured if I'm gonna be putting organic material and I wanted to go with the absolute best that I could get my hands on, I opted for CarbonizePN
from Mirimichi Green. What this is is an extremely
rich organic soil enhancer, it contains 50% compost and 50% biochar, which means it's incredibly
rich organic material that's going to both level a lawn or do a pretty good job with leveling it, and it's gonna feed the soil. So it's gonna put a lot
of really good material into the soil, it's
gonna help with the grass just thriving and doing
really, really well. Now, let's get into
actual leveling the lawn. Okay, so there are a
couple of different ways of spreading the mixture out on the surface you're gonna level. I prefer just to take
it and just empty it out in a small little S pattern on the lawn and then use the leveling
rake to work it in. So, an idea what that looks like is where I got the bag open here, and I'm just gonna kind of create like a little S pattern here. So you make leaving little
spots like that open, come down here a little
bit more like that. And then to work it in, we're gonna use a leveling rake. So again, this is a
real benefit of the rake because it can act almost,
not necessarily as a shovel, but it does a really good job of spreading the mixture around. So literally all we're gonna
do is work it back and forth, just like that, just like what you're seeing here. And the idea is you wanna work
it in multiple directions, so up, down, left, right to
really get a nice even coverage. And what you're seeing there, as far as the grass blades
sticking up a little bit, that's what you're after, you don't want it to be fully covered up to where all the grass is fully buried, especially on a slope, because part of what we're
battling with the slope, right, is not only leveling,
but also when it rains, we're trying to minimize runoff. So really this what I've done
right here, is about as heavy as I'd wanna go on a slope. So just keep working it back and forth. And as you see, as I use a
leveling rake more and more, the material drops in more and more of the grass
blades are being exposed. So this looks really good,
I'm happy with this, right? So now once it's done, so
we've done this section. One thing I like to do as
well is we worked it in, we kinda scrubbed it in, as I like to say, and now we're gonna make
some dragging passes. So again, if we just extrapolate
this over the entire lawn, what you're gonna do is
you're gonna drop the rake are you're just gonna
drag it like this across and then kinda go back in
the opposite direction across kinda like so. And then I actually like to
do it in multiple directions. So lengthwise and then diagonally. So I always mow the lawn
like this way, I'm sorry, this way in this pattern. So I tend to drag the material
in that same pattern too. So I'll come up and drag it like, so, and then back down, and
then up, and then back down. And what this does is, again, it kinda helps to further
work the material in and also helps identify
any low spots potentially in the lawn. So that's the entire process, guys, you'd rinse and repeat. So again, to recap, you're gonna scrub the
material in really well kinda using that process
that I was showing you, just work it in all kinds
of different directions, drag the rake lengthwise,
and then diagonally. And then after that, the
next step is watering it in. So you're gonna wanna water
this mixture in pretty heavily. That's gonna allow it to sink in the turf further kind of integrate
with existing soil. And now it's time for that
bonus I was telling you about. So if you have access to a real
mower, once the soil is wet, now's a great time to use
the weight of a real mower with a roller to roll
over the entire lawn. That's gonna further press
the material into the turf. It's gonna help compact
it in a little bit more, which, again, is going
to minimize that runoff whenever we get some rain on the lawn. So that's a quick hack. If you're gonna do that, make sure that you disable
the reel on your real mower. 'Cause you really don't
want the real spinning when you're running over this stuff. Because even though, you know, your (indistinct) is
probably gonna be higher than what this is, you don't want to
introduce unnecessary wear to the reel and blade
nut because it's spinning while you're basically running
over dirt on the lawn, right? So make sure you disable
that if at all possible, make multiple passes, same kinda thing, lengthwise with a real
mower and then diagonally, that's gonna really work the material in, it's gonna really help
with helping it settle. And that's gonna prevent you
from getting a lot of runoff whenever it rains. Again, that's one of
the big things we battle whenever you're leveling on a slope. All right, time for that cost break down that I promised you earlier. One bag of CarbonizPN is 40 pounds and covers right at a
100 square feet area. You can take a look at
the section of the lawn that I've got here, it's
about a 10 by 10 foot area. Because my entire front
lawn is 2000 square feet, I'm gonna end up needing
20 bags of CarbonizPN to do the entire lawn. So at a cost of approximately $22 per bag times 20 bags that comes
out to $440 for the mix. And then as far as a
leveling rake, a good one you're gonna spend around
$130 or thereabouts for one of these guys. Now, there are cheaper
options for a leveling rake, but I would encourage
you to get a good one because the better ones
are better constructed and they are a little bit heavier. So this is the way that the
rake does a lot of the work as far as leveling. So I really recommend if
you're gonna spend the money, be sure to get a good one. It's gonna hold up better. It's gonna do a better job. Now, as far as other
options for organic mix, there are cheaper options than CarbonizPN. If you're willing to get the
material delivered in bulk, you can definitely save
some money that way. But I opted to go with this because one, it was
accessible in this area, and I wanted to put the best
possible material that I could on the lawn so I'm just gonna
be introducing organic mix. So if you guys are interested in seeing how the lawn developed
and how it recovers, bounces back from all this work that's about to go down on it, be sure to subscribe to the channel so that way you won't
miss out on anything. Also, if you'd like to
see another playlist that kind of completes everything that goes into creating
a golf course lawn, I'll have a video that's right here that you can click on
and it's gonna take you to a playlist that talks
about other aspects. In addition to top dressing, they're gonna help you
create the best possible one. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next video. (relaxing music)
