Planting grass on a slope hack.

[toobfreak]

The slope faces west and is baked by the sun. I bought extra soil from a usually good source but the stuff I got was not very good. The 'subsoil' is gravel. Winter freezing will help as it tends to make soil more friable. It'll work out well with some amendments and overseeding.

One trick i always did was to never use that burlap or netting over newly planted grass, but instead, kept about 1/2" think layer of sphagnum peat moss over it. I just crumble it and broadcast it by hand until even. Also helps with runoff and birds. Every few days, check and add more as bare spots develop.

It works in as a soil conditioner and mild fertilizer, but what I liked was that it kept the soil from drying out as fast. I'd water early in the day so that by sundown, it was pretty dry--- this helped avoid damping off and fungal development (you know you have fungus starting, it will appear white).

Years ago, I tore up an area of the yard at the house pretty bad putting in a new retaining wall--- the hillside above it had a lot of rock and stone that was taken and used to help build the wall. After the wall was finished, I had to repair the hillside both from all the work in the area plus now being cleared of rock, I needing to replace it with grass.

Here was the area after preparation, raking smooth and seeding.

Next in went the peat moss. It is dark when moist--- when you see it starting to turn light brown (like at the top), it is time to water again.

Then I tried something different. I wet it well with clouds and rain in the forecast for the next several days and covered it with clear plastic. This kept the moisture in, let in the sun and heat giving the soil greater warmth to germinate the seeds. You could see the moisture condensing under the plastic. I left it that way for maybe 5-7 days until I started to see seeds germinating. The upside was that birds couldn't get to it and heavy rain could not wash the seed or the peat away.

Once a lot of the seeds started to germinate, I removed the plastic to let air in and watered normally, still throwing added peat on as needed. Here is a picture after the first pass with a lawnmower--- the grass was so thick and tender that for a few hours, you could see the tracks left by the wheels of the mower.