Lawn RENOVATION From START TO FINISH // SCALP, DETHATCH, CORE and TOPDRESS

guess what renovation day today so let's get stuck into this and get it done [Music] [Music] yo mate what up welcome to another lawn tip vid so first half of reno day today today we're going to scout this lawn and we're going to scarify it and clean it up um because i want to get that done before the rain sets in and i've got the cora machine booked in for tomorrow which is tuesday um so first thing we're going to run over it with this john d um just to do on the lower setting so i'll do it with the catcher and then next we're going to scalp it like crazy i'll show you guys how low we're going to go i love scout for me and then we'll just keep on going we're gonna damien [Music] let's cut that whole thing and forgot to engage the catcher let's go over that again i mean you think you'd learn your lesson all right let's put you in the gator so it's not too noisy for you [Music] all right so that is done first pass so the reason i did that is just so when it comes to scalping i'm not taking off heaps with my little push mark definitely not something you have to do and this thing doesn't scalp super low otherwise the probabilities would use it to scale the lawn which would have been so good we still got a lot of material off that it's heaps better than getting a lot of material off with a push mower and struggling through it nice just to cut nice and clean through there so if you look at the line it looks like pretty low but i still want to go low with this kaikyu you see if you had something like some rye grass even something like some tall fescue you'd probably go this low if you really wanted to just for reno time grasses that don't like being cut too short you could do it for renault about this short um and i wouldn't go any lower as for buffalo um as long as you could still see some leaf there like you do here i think that would be low enough for buffalo i would recommend not going any lower than this this is probably around oh it's probably around 20 mil maybe a smidge below this is the moment we've been waiting for well anyway i've been waiting for is to get out the big bob and scout this super hard um now what i've done is i've drilled a hole in this a little bit lower down just here so we can give it a nice heavy skip so this thing is basically nearly gonna go to dirt so let's start her up let's just see how much this tears in now the reason i want to take this down to dirt is because i want to get this height nice and low reset it with kaiku and kuch you can do this go ahead and do it you can take it down to dirt nearly if you want to you want to make sure there's still some runners there and you're not like digging underground but it's going to be fine um it means that our heights just going to be super reset and low so when we do end up bringing a real mower on here in the in the long run it'll be sweet should also mention the main reason we're cutting down super low for a scalp is to get rid of that above ground thatch so a lot of dead organic material in here like this sort of stuff just here um which we're trying to get rid of um just so we get some oxygen back down in there so so something i'm going to do once a year unless i'm trying to reset my height and cut a little bit lower um but yeah just going to get real heavy and smash it more [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i'll tell you what it's still worth doing that but it's just too wet unfortunately i'm gonna have to stop for today because if i want to scarify this i'm just going to make an absolute mess not be able to pick it up i'm not going to be able to clean it up properly and then if i don't want to top dress on top of scarifying i want to clean it up properly so that we can have a good renault so let's hope man i'm hoping that it doesn't rain tomorrow um or at least maybe this afternoon it was supposed to be clear this album so i'll leave this stuff here there's only sprinkling but it's enough just to make a mess on this whole lawn which is frustrating i'll show you so this is what it looked like here before it got too wet you can see we can still see some soil which is awesome this is as low as i want to go with this it's great because there's some spots a little bit higher i'm bam smashed you can still see this runners in there um but yeah this was a lot drier through here when i did it so you can see we picked it up nicely now as soon as we get over here you can see it's just all this stuff here still that we took off and i don't really want to leave that there i want to clear it out so what the plan is going to be is i'll come back and hopefully it's a little bit dry this afternoon clean it up with this mower here pick it all up because i know it'll do when it's dry it's just super wet and then from there hopefully we get to scarify this afternoon so i'll see you guys when we get back [Music] yesterday i ended up getting a little bit more done picked up all the stuff off the top um so this is nice and clean now did the edges here um with the blade edger and then i used the landscape blade as well to knock down some of the stuff on the sides because it's a little bit long because the mower wasn't quite reaching over there um but then that's all i got done just had some family over for a long weekend um so today scarifier and then we've also got the old blue bird here from kenars shout out to canada for that um to cool air right and then top dress later on [Music] all right so i spoke about this in the last video a little bit but quick overview of this machine this is a scarifier as you can see by the teeth all the blades in here quite far apart which this is designed to get the below ground thatch um and i'll show you i'll show you in a minute once we pull something out all the facts that actually pulls out from underground um so this is going to help get some oxygen down into the root system below for a bit of compaction up to an extent not really a lot um and then just allow water to get down and infiltrate into the soil a little bit better as well so i only like to do this once a year with a hard renault on something like kaku and kooch um steer clear of grasses that don't have like runners and stolens and stuff like that um i mean you could do it to ryegrass but you just rip it out of the ground so let's hit a really really light one if you did it really light maybe with a verdi cutter or a groomer all right let's check this catcher on give it a few runs and see how it goes there we go that is a lot better no dirt in that maybe a smidge but basically nothing um and lots of dead stuff in there beautiful two runs and i got a full thing that's ridiculous [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] all right so that's all done scarified in two directions and the reason we do that is so in case we miss any parts and it does actually pull out just as much when you go over the second time oh man look at this so as i got drier we didn't really get any dirt or anything which is good just all the dead materials now that stuff is all under the soil look at that like how good is that clearing all that out and letting all the oxygen back down towards our roots there now obviously it does take a while for this to come back after doing this which makes sense you've absolutely decimated the thing which is actually quite satisfying to do um but look at all these runners too look it's pulled out some big suckers there's honestly that machine did an awesome job very impressed with it we got a lot out i said it a bit deeper than you probably generally normally would because it's probably never been done here um and there's quite a bit of thatch down there um but sweet that is done so now we're on to core aeration all right so this here is the core machine so this one here is a barrel on it basically and i'll just spin around when you drop into the ground you can set your height with a dial here i'm pretty sure we'll forget as we go um we can actually put some weight blocks in it which is a great idea um to get it to get a little bit deeper down to the ground especially got some harder soils these are the weights here which just slot in the side i won't put them in until i got it on the lawn um these things abuse you i tell you what they do abuse you but it'll work well let's use it we'll go over in two directions now the reason we're core aerating just want to say quickly is to get rid of compaction again help get some nutrients and water down to the root zone and then when we top dress it'll actually help with some drainage as well because we use some sand so a top dress for sand and since putting holes in there um those holes be put up the sand will be able to get some water and nutrients and even some oxygen down there just a little bit easier as well [Music] [Music] [Music] so as you can see it's pulled some cores out of the ground they're about two inches deep um maybe three yeah very about three inches um so they look pretty good now this is the soil is actually pretty good a little bit clay but it's nothing like my old house like my old house was so clay like it was ridiculous this actually breaks up and crumbles in your hand but as you can imagine we're pulling these plugs out of the ground so replace that with some sand it's obviously going to help with drainage as i said before and nutrients and oxygen and water getting down there as well so um it's gonna be awesome now this thing looks like a mess it's quite a big mess um this is still a little bit wet so we'll try and pick it up with the mower um we're not gonna have much luck breaking it off to be honest oh i could let's see how the mug goes first but the motors and mic will rake it off you could leave this on here if you wanted to you don't have to take them off i personally like to take them off some people like to leave them there let them like smoosh down on top with your top dress as well um but i mean if your soil is wet like this it's not really going to break down that easily this is a bit dryer i reckon the plugs wouldn't even be as intact at the moment anyway that's the job done um i only went over it once because one because i was stuffed and because i'm pretty happy with that um and yeah i mean probably something like a hydrostatic one that's just gonna punch holes straight down it's gonna get them closer together i like this using the golf course and we'll probably do a better job as well and pull out a cleaner core instead of that barrel roller but that thing still worked well that's what i had access to [Music] [Music] so [Music] right so top dressing day so i let the sand dry for a couple of days because it was really wet um and unfortunately spreading sand was wet is just a big struggle i mean i technically could have put it in piles and it dried a little bit quicker but i've got the time and i thought let's make this a big long video so it's going to split it up into two videos um but let's do this big video so i'll let the sand dryer for a bit we'll top dress it i'll feel a little bit more a a bit better about letting it dry and just doing it so today i'll show you guys how we top dress um lawns um let's get the shovel first so generally for a light top dress you'd probably go about 10 mil thick which is about a meter which is a bit of cube over 100 square meters now we're going to go basically because of some low spots and i really want to level this lawn out so we're going to cover this like completely use quite a lot of sand so it's just going to be a fuel thing i ordered about 7 tonne which we probably won't use all of that this is 250 square meters here um but we might get close because there's some dips everywhere but how i do it is if you have got no top dressing machine you can use a shovel in a wheelbarrow or a trap if you've got one and all you do is put on the ground flick it out it's as easy as that nothing too fast [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so top dressing done on the lawn we're gonna rub it in now but let me show you guys how thick i went because i went like stupid thick because this lawn is pretty unlevel for me to get a cylinder mower on it so i've covered it like crazy kuching kaiku sorry i'm fine to do this don't do this with buffalo zoysia i wouldn't go as thick because so slow growing um when it comes to cool season grass like printer raw grass even kentucky blue grass and even tall fescue don't go thick like this stick to your 10 mil per or 10 mil thickness if you can it's at least at least an inch in thickness there so that is super duper thick now be aware this is going to take a lot longer to come back because i have done this so thick i'm not stressed about it though i know it will it'll probably take a month maybe even a little bit longer than that for it to really really come through just because it is so flippant thick but i'm not stressed i know kaiki will come through it's just gonna take some time [Music] something um [Music] done um i'm pretty up for that level actually went over a few times it looks pretty good it's thick it is so thick but you know what shaper up but it'll be good it'll be really good um so last step is to put some fertilizer down now i saw it all the time with some rain um just because we don't have a lot of water here um as i've talked about previously supposed to be getting some rain tomorrow so a bit of a chance tomorrow yeah so what i'll do is i'll put some fertilizer out tomorrow morning it's my afternoon before the rain comes and let it water it in as well now after this to keep up with this lawn it's going to be best if i keep the moisture up to this as much as i can so i've actually timed this pretty well because i've got like quite a bit of rain coming over the next week so i'll probably be safe when i have to water this too much and the reason you want to keep the water up to a little bit more than you normally would is just because it can dry out a little bit because you've got sand on top of it and you've just punched some holes in it and you're trying to get the grass to grow through as well so you really want to make sure you're keeping the moisture up to it so it doesn't dry out and stress out because it looks like a beach right now and you know a beach is like when you're walking it hot on the feet boy i'll mention one more thing the sand that i got here um is sort of it's a wash sand it's actually like a bricky sand but it's not like the bricky sand that's really really fine like it's got quite a bit of course in it as well you don't want to go for really really fine bricky sand or something like that because it's going to create issues with it getting really compacted and hard when it dries out it gets wet then it dries out so you really want to go for something if you go want to find some sand go to your local landscape place and ask them what do they use in the golf course for top dressing if they have no idea or you can't find out see if you can find out from someone in town that works on a golf course if you can because really really hard to explain what sort of sand you need when you're top dressing your lawn so just be aware of that um yeah but this is like it's a mix of course and fine it's washed as well so it's got no weed seeds in it and it's gonna be great for drainage on top of that um otherwise ask for an 80 20 mix 90 10 mix or usga sand if you can as well um and most the time wash pit sand is going to be fine also thanks guys so much for watching really appreciate it hope you learned something from that keep an eye on the channel and see how this thing progresses over the weeks because i'll be showing you guys in every video that i upload how it started to progress along anyway thanks sweet

Channel: Lawn Tips

Views: 210,270

Keywords: lawn tips, lawn renovation, lawn reno, kikuyu grass, fixing my lawn, how to fix a lawn, scalping a lawn, lawn scalp, topdress, topdressing with sand, levelling with sand, scarifying a lawn, dethatching a lawn, core aeration, how to core a lawn, how to renovate a lawn, sand topdress, sand on lawn, lawn renovation from start to finish, scalping grass, fixing kikuyu

Id: wiABHwaOvdI

Length: 22min 26sec (1346 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 08 2021