There are calculators online if you search.

 

3 yards will give you .75" across that amount of area. Sounds like a good amount for leveling. You will want to fallow the new soil or it may bring in a ton of weed seeds (mine did).

 

I am working on about 1400 sq ft ,ordered 6 yards to be on the safe side. I had to build a screen since there were chunks of clay, rocks , etc. The fine top soil is what you want to use for leveling .

 

I think 3 yards would be good. I used 7 yards for 5500 sq ft. And it wasnt nearly enough

 

3 yards will give you .75" across that amount of area. Sounds like a good amount for leveling. You will want to fallow the new soil or it may bring in a ton of weed seeds (mine did).

Not used to seeing fallow used in this context. How would this prevent weeds?

 

3 yards will give you .75" across that amount of area. Sounds like a good amount for leveling. You will want to fallow the new soil or it may bring in a ton of weed seeds (mine did).

Not used to seeing fallow used in this context. How would this prevent weeds?

I would water the new soil to allow any weeds to germinate. Then, as they do, hit them with glyphosate to kill them. I wish I had done this as my soil i brought in had a copious amount of barley and poa seeds in it. I am planning a reno next year anyway, so I can deal with them for a bit, but was still irritating to have large bright green patches in my yard where the soil was the thickest.

 

I used municipal compost for minor leveling last fall and I definitely have some new weeds.
On POA I think this year has just been perfect for POA T in northeast Wisconsin. It went crazy in my yard unlike any of the past 10 years I have been in this house.

 

I would water the new soil to allow any weeds to germinate. Then, as they do, hit them with glyphosate to kill them. I wish I had done this as my soil i brought in had a copious amount of barley and poa seeds in it. I am planning a reno next year anyway, so I can deal with them for a bit, but was still irritating to have large bright green patches in my yard where the soil was the thickest.

Roger that. Makes complete sense.

 

I was watching a gardening show on PBS while eating breakfast a couple of weekends ago. They showed this gorgeous house/landscape and the lead designer was describing the vision/work they did. It had a gorgeous prairie meadow grass area. She described that the fallowed (her word too) the soil for 3 year! Yes, 3 years of watering and round up. They wanted to make sure there was no weed seeds since the meadow grass might not handle the herbicides.

So yes, fallow your topsoil.

 

I got 20 yds for 9,500 sq ft and I think it is turning out to be just the right amount.

I have been fallowing for almost 3 weeks now and have only spotted a couple of weeds so far. Must have gotten lucky with the soil. It has plenty of obnoxious clay pebbles though.

 

Let me ask this, is there any alternative to topsoil in order to do leveling at renovation time. If you do anything you are basically stirring the soil and possibly brining up weed seeds?

 

I was watching a gardening show on PBS while eating breakfast a couple of weekends ago. They showed this gorgeous house/landscape and the lead designer was describing the vision/work they did. It had a gorgeous prairie meadow grass area. She described that the fallowed (her word too) the soil for 3 year! Yes, 3 years of watering and round up. They wanted to make sure there was no weed seeds since the meadow grass might not handle the herbicides.

So yes, fallow your topsoil.

@g-man just wondering if this calls into question the benefits of a short term fallowing (let's say 2-3 weeks of fallowing before seed down)? In the example you mentioned, it took some 3 years of fallowing to actually draw out all of the weed seeds. If most people will realistically only be able to get 1 round of fallowing done in a 2-3 week period is it even worth it? Or is the amount of weed pressure relieved in those early rounds of fallowing exponentially higher? Since there's still going to be weeds coming up even after fallowing, trying to understand why it's better to fallow a little rather than just apply a couple of rounds of tenacity at/following seed down? My assumption is that there's likely so many weed seeds hiding in the soil that every little bit helps, but wanted to make sure I understand the concept given how much love tenacity gets for controlling weeds during germination. Thanks!

 

I think the benefit comes from a multi-pronged approach. You fallow to relieve the initial weed pressure, use tenacity to prevent the next round at seed down, another round of tenacity at 30 days post germination, and at 60 days post germination you switch to prodiamine or dithiopyr. You may get some broad leaf weeds that are easily manageable with 2, 4-d or another broad spectrum herbicide, but most grassy weeds should be prevented.

I believe best fallowing practice is to speay roundup on existing grass/vegetation. Wait 2 weeks, do another round. Wait 2 more weeks, do.another round and seed next day. This provides three rounds of roundup and a thorough kill of the initial weeds.

The issue with the prairie grass it is doesn't appear to do well with either broad spectrum or preemergent herbicide. Because they didn't have this tool, a longer fallow period was required.

You will never maintain completely weed free soil. Bird droppings, your shoes, wind, pets, and kids can all bring weed seeds into a yard. Continuous preemergent use will help prevent their germination, as well as sound cultural practices and a healthy stand of turf.

@mmicha to answer the other question from earlier, sand can be used for leveling with minimal risk of weed introduction. It may be better after turf is established though.

 

@Collywood I think fallowing is super helpful. Killing some broadleaf is easy. But killing poa a or poa t or goosegrass or bermuda, that gets harder and expensive. Are you going to get rid of 100% of all the weeds? no. You going to get rid of 95% of the ones that are on the surface ready to grow once you start watering. Tenacity is a nice tool, but it is also not a 100%.

I fallowed my reno last year with 3 round up apps. I did tenacity at seed down. I still had some minor spots with poa a.

 

I'm about to do some leveling and overseeding. I have about 1400sqft and was thinking ~3 yards. I don't have Tenacity but do have Prodiamine. I hadn't accounted for fallowing or using PreM until next spring. I hope I won't end up with a crazy amount of weeds. I do plan to seed it very shortly after putting down the soil.

 

Trouble you could face is you won't be able to use Prodiamine for a couple months as it will hurt grass sprouting, in the meantime weeds may sprout.
Tenacity can act as a pre-emergent to many things while leaving the grass seed/sprouts alone, that is why it is such a big deal.

 

Thanks everyone, those are helpful explanations. Basically, neither fallowing nor tenacity nor anything else will ever keep you eternally weed-free, but the more you can do before your grass actually starts growing, the easier/cheaper it will be to keep the weeds in check from there.

@mmicha to your original question on how much topsoil, I'm in a similar boat. I have 1,250 out back, and brought in 3 yards of screened topsoil to try and level out some areas between high spots. Nothing major, but slight mounds in spots that are probably a few inches above the low spots. Really hard to estimate how much soil is needed when you're already uneven using one of the online calculators, because in some spots i need 1/4" and others I might need 3-4", with a constantly changing amount in each different spot of the yard.

I will say for my situation, which again wasn't extreme, I should've used 6 yards. At the end of the 3 yards, things were close, but not where I wanted them to be. After about a day of wondering if I should get more dirt or just add some sand/soil gradually over time to where I want, we were hit with a tropical storm which washed out a good bit of the new soil. So lucky me I'll get to add another 3 yards and probably end up having put down around 5-5.5 in total on my 1,250 sqft.