About to give up…
Round up. Pulling weeds. Leveling. Took me two months. Ready to lay grass seed and now realizing my soil doesn’t take water! I’ve tried baby shampoo and surfactant. Nothing, neither worked. I have sugar sand soil. This picture is my sand after watering my yard for almost an hour, completely dry under 1/2 an inch at most. I just got some coco coir to till in and see if that helps but I’m very discouraged the surfactant didn’t help at all. Not sure what else to do. Is it impossible to grow anything other than weeds in my yard and I’m just wasting my time trying?
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Bermuda will grow in the cracks of a sidewalk so it should grow on your sand. I'm not a big fan of seeding, especially if the water is not soaking in very well but you will have to keep the soil moist with shallow watering at first anyway so might as well go for it. My soil is pure sugar sand and can get hydrophobic as well. Watering light and often you can work the moisture down into the ground.
BTW... your photos are not showing on my end. It could be a problem with my computer but I'm seeing photos on other threads.
BTW... your photos are not showing on my end. It could be a problem with my computer but I'm seeing photos on other threads.
What surfactant did you use? If it is what I think it is, that is NOT designed to wet the soil, you need a legitimate Wetting Agent which actually works. I too have mostly sandy soil and my bermuda grows just fine, personally, I prefer it over most other soils as it is easier to control what the lawn gets.
How many sq/ft of lawn do you have?
How many sq/ft of lawn do you have?
I bought Bermuda seed so hopefully it works. I plan on tilling in some coco coir on the top few inches to hold water. My biggest concern is keeping it alive afterwards. Once the grass starts growing the water won’t reach the root zone. I’d rather not have to place misters around my yard and keep them on 24/7 :/ I’m starting to believe anyone that has grass in Florida removed the sand and replaced it with soil 2 ft down.
Once the grass starts growing it will change the profile of the soil. Why not just use sod?
I'm in Florida and have straight sugar sand all the way down. Both my Bermuda and Zoysia do fantastic in that soil and it has wonderful drainage. I have to add an extra day of irrigation during any dry hot spells but it is way better than hard clay or caliche. I would never ever consider seeding. The typical thunderstorms are too common and will ruin anything you put down on bare ground. You might save some money on your first round but in the end you will have to redo it so many times it will end up costing you way more.
I used Liquid Harvest surfactant. It’s probably not the right stuff because I am new to this. I also used Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo. Some sort of yucca mix will be here today that I was going to try if the surfactant didn’t work. I know I can get the seeds started. I did a test patch last year and learned a lot through trial and error. Found out about mole crickets and how cats love to run through your grass seed chasing them. I now know about bugs, fertilizer, pre emergent, soil nutrients and PH. The grass that did grow was great but slowly started to die after 3 months and got taken over by weeds. Very little grass was left this spring. I killed it off to start over with more knowledge and better grass seed this time. I am assuming the problem last time was bugs and lack of water due to the sand. I have little experience growing plants but I’m learning. I have reef tanks and I’m seeing this is just as simple but can be complicated if you don’t know what to do. I planted a coconut palm in my front yard 12 years ago. It’s huge now and gets a ton of coconuts. All I did was place it in the ground and watered it.What surfactant did you use? If it is what I think it is, that is NOT designed to wet the soil, you need a legitimate Wetting Agent which actually works. I too have mostly sandy soil and my bermuda grows just fine, personally, I prefer it over most other soils as it is easier to control what the lawn gets.
How many sq/ft of lawn do you have?
I think my town is anti Bermuda. It’s either zoysia or St Augustine sod.Once the grass starts growing it will change the profile of the soil. Why not just use sod?
Thunderstorms are going to be my biggest enemy right now.I'm in Florida and have straight sugar sand all the way down. Both my Bermuda and Zoysia do fantastic in that soil and it has wonderful drainage. I have to add an extra day of irrigation during any dry hot spells but it is way better than hard clay or caliche. I would never ever consider seeding. The typical thunderstorms are too common and will ruin anything you put down on bare ground. You might save some money on your first round but in the end you will have to redo it so many times it will end up costing you way more.
Just a thought, but if you're able to, how about trying a germination blanket to keep more moisture in? There's a great article in Sportsfield Mangement Magazine about establishing bernudagrass playing fields without irrigation. Their protocol was to put Quinclorac down with the seed to stop crabgrass and a few broadleafs before they get started, then cover it with the blankets. If you can cover the seeds lightly with compost it works even better. They claimed they got full coverage with fields ready to play by summer this way.
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