The Grass Doctor

When planting grass seeds in rocky, but moist, soil how important is it to rake out the rocks?

I was told I had to rake the rocks out of the soil before planting, but to what extent? Pebbles? I'm thinking the ones the size of a golf ball or bigger. There was wild grass on this property before, but it was cleared for a house. We're in the Adirondacks.

Public Comments

1. I'm no expert but what I am learning from experience. I think its fairly important. Anything gravel sized and bigger. Then get a rototiller out there and tear up the ground, then a layer of top soil. That is my advice for you that we should have done. When we bought our house it had a gravel yard. Well we saw the size of the yard and thought when we got the gravel out and put grass in that it would be perfect for our daughter -who was just a baby at the time. Well.. come to find out the guy dumped gravel so he didn't have to maintain while selling the house (bummer). We tore out the gravel but had a hard time with getting all of it in the front. Some of the gravel is mixed in the soil pretty good.. not just a little either. We decided to leave what was there and plant plugs. Come to find out the root systems would have a hard time in the rocky soil. So.. I don't know much about grass or anything but it is generally a good idea to get most of it out and then mix up the ground. -top soil gives the seeds the best shot at growth and a chance to establish away from the rocks. Again I'm no expert. I'm sure pebbles are fine but rocks not so much. Think if it looks the size of gravel it needs to go. Good luck :)
2. Eddie, trust me on this as among other things, I also was in the landscape business too. Also had my own company. Get the larger "rocks" out, you can leave the normal "stone size" rocks or stones as they won't harm anything. BUT VERY IMPORTANT...you need a GOOD BASE of no less than 3 inches of good top soil on top of everywhere you're going to plant the grass seed. Once the grass starts growing, you want a good BASE for the grass ROOTS to get good "hold" & keep growing. If you've ever noticed sod, it has a good base of top soil it's grown in & when they "cut" the sod strips, you've got a good base of soil cut with the grass roots. I've also laid & cut scads of rolls of sod. So, it's OK to leave you're little "stones", but just make sure you get that GOOD BASE of rich top soil & you'll do OK. When you buy your seed, ask them what they recommend you put down when you sow the seed. There are a LOT of new things out I'm not familiar with, but they'll let you know just what you need. Good luck, Eddie, this sure will be your "working out" time, you'll be using a LOT of muscles, twisting etc. So you sure don't need to worry about work outs while you're doing this!
3. Eddie, we went thru this in our previous house up north--get as much out as you can, and like Sue said, a good layer of topsoil is critical, regardless of seed or sod. We used seed, as we had over 1/2 acre of lawn to plant. We found a local dirt/soil biz and ordered several dumptruck loads of topsoil blended for our area. Also used the same place to fill our raised beds with good compost. Good luck. It's hard work.