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" A hard summer can make a lawn look faded, threadbare and full of holes as your favorite sweat shirt. If your lawn is among them--or has simply suffered from normal wear and tear\u2014don&amp;#039;t rush to the conclusion that it&amp;#039;s time to replace it. Depending upon the damage, you may be able to restore it to its former glory without tearing up your old lawn. The rule of thumb is that if more than half your lawn is still covered with grass that is a healthy deep green, restoration is the better choice. While this path is not nearly as labor intensive as starting over, it will still require several weekends of hard work. The best time to begin is late summer or fall, but dethatching and pH adjustment can be done in the spring to prepare for a fall restoration. Although you will be able to see significant improvement during the season in which you begin, the real progress will happen in two or three growing seasons. Remove Thatch And Weeds When beginning a lawn restoration, the first step is to remove any thatch buildup (Photo 1). Unless you can expose the soil between the old grass plants, the steps that follow will have poor results. While you&amp;#039;re at it, make a note of weed colonies or turf areas that are beyond repair and Use a dethatching rake to remove lawn thatch in small areas. For larger plots, rent a vertical mower. Angle the rake so the tines slightly cut the ground. Use a push-pull stroke to lift the thatch. Rake up the waste. remove the worst of them before proceeding (Photo 2). The best time to dethatch is when your lawn is thriving\u2014not when it&amp;#039;s stressed in the heat of summer or cold of winter. When you are ready to begin, mow your lawn to a height of about 1 in. Short grass will make dethatching and surface preparation easier. The easiest way to remove thatch from a lawn that is over 3000 sq. ft. is with a vertical mower (a machine with vertical tines or blades). These are available at many rental stores. For smaller lawns or lawns with thin layers of thatch, a manual dethatching rake will suffice (Photo 3). Angle the rake so the tines just cut into the soil, then use a push-pull stroke to lift the thatch (Photo 4). When using a vertical mower make several passes over the lawn in perpendicular directions. Thoroughness is important. Remove the thatch you pull up after each pass and add it to your compost pile. When you have finished remow your lawn to a height of 1 in.  The first step in restoring a lawn is to remove thatch, the matted layer of dead grass at the base of the living plants.  Use a grape hoe to remove areas of dead turf or weeds. The head should be almost parallel to the ground at impact.  Use a dethatching rake to remove lawn thatch in small areas. For larger plots, rent a vertical mower.  Angle the rake so the tines slightly cut the ground. Use a push-pull stroke to lift the thatch. Rake up the waste. Level Bumps And Depressions While you are dethatching your lawn, check for bumps and depressions.  These may have been caused by poor grading, uneven settling or decomposition of buried tree stumps, logs or roots. Level any bumps by raising the sod with a sharp spade and removing the necessary amount of soil beneath it. While the soil base is exposed, mix in some compost and fertilizer. Soak the area with a hose and press the sod back in place. Slight depressions can be smoothed over by spreading a thin layer of topsoil or a combination of topsoil and compost. For handling larger depressions\u2014more than 2 in. deep and several square feet in area\u2014it&amp;#039;s best to raise the sod (Photo 5), fill the depression with a mixture of soil, humus and fertilizer (Photo 6), replace the sod and press it in place (Photo 7). Be sure to keep repaired areas moist. Otherwise the edges will dry out and turn brown.  Fill the area under the turf with a mixture of soil, compost and fertilizer. Overfill a bit to allow for compaction.  Roll the turf back in place and tamp lightly. Sift soil into any exposed seams and water the repair thoroughly.  To obtain a soil sample, use a clean, rust-free trowel to dig holes in 10 different locations around your yard. Adjust Your Soil&amp;#039;s pH To adjust the pH, you first have to test your soil and this requires a soil sample. To get a sample, use a clean trowel to remove a thin slice of soil from about 10 6-in.-dia. holes around your property (Photo 8). Mix the samples in a clean container and let them dry (Photo 9). Then send this sample to the Cooperative Extension Service (CES) soil lab in your state, usually located at a state university. To obtain a soil test kit, request one from the CES office in your county. Its phone number is listed in the white or blue government pages of your phone book under &amp;quot;county cooperative extension&amp;quot; or in the listings for your state university. You can also use do-it-yourself home and garden center kits to get a rough idea of pH and nutritional levels (Photo 10). If your soil test shows that your soil&amp;#039;s pH is low, add lime according to the lab&amp;#039;s recommendations (Photo 11). Lime amendments come in various forms, from ground oyster shells to liquids. Ground limestone is the preferred type because it&amp;#039;s readily available and can be safely, easily and accurately applied with a drop or rotary spreader.The more clay and organic content there is in your soil, the more lime you will need to correct the pH. Sandy soils, on the other hand, require less lime. If you need to add more than 40 pounds of lime per 1000 sq. ft., do it in two or more applications. And don&amp;#039;t mix lime with fertilizer. The resulting chemical reaction will release the nitrogen you want for your grass into the air. Water the lawn after spreading lime to wash the particles off the grass leaves and into the soil. To lower pH add elemental sulfur in pelletized form or compounds such as ammonium sulfate and iron sulfate. Do not use finely ground sulfur. It&amp;#039;s designed to be a fungicide and is therefore a hazardous material. See amendment packaging for how much to apply. Sulfur acts quickly, usually within a month, to lower soil pH, but don&amp;#039;t try to make your correction in one application. Apply no more than 5 pounds per 1000 sq. ft. per application. To meet recommended amounts, make several surface applications a few weeks apart and water the grass after each one.  To obtain a soil sample, use a clean, rust-free trowel to dig holes in 10 different locations around your yard.  Mix the samples in a clean container and let them dry at room temperature before sending them to a lab.  You can use home center test kits to get a quick idea of pH and nutritional levels. But lab tests are more thorough.  To raise the pH of acidic soils, use finely ground limestone. A lawn spreader makes for uniform application. Add Nutrients When restoring a lawn, apply half the fertilizer recommended by the results of your soil test in the first application, and half after the new grass begins to grow. Take care not to put down more fertilizer than you need (Photo 12). Adding too much nitrogen can cause rapid growth and a thinning of plant cell walls. This makes grass more susceptible to disease. The excess fertilizer may also find its way into waterways and cause pollution. The right dose of fertilizer won&amp;#039;t help much if your soil does not contain an adequate population of microbes. These microscopic organisms, billions per handful, not only digest grass clippings, dead grass roots and stems, but they also make the nutrients available to living grass plants. To ensure a thriving microbe population, 2 to 5 percent of your soil must consist of organic material. A top-dressing followed by aeration will eventually incorporate organic matter into the soil without disrupting the lawn. When top-dressing your lawn, use about 1 cubic yard, which is about 100 pounds, of a 40/60 mix of topsoil and compost per 1000 sq. ft. Premix this top-dressing in a wheelbarrow, then distribute it around your lawn (Photo 13). Spread it evenly with a wide rake and work it into the turf so it reaches the bottom of the grass (Photo 14). Topsoil is available from most nurseries and landscape centers. Be sure that it has a dark, rich color and that it has not been diluted with lighter-colored subsoils. Compost can be had from several sources. Many towns make compost available to residents for little or no cost. Compost is made from the leaves, grass and brush that residents haul to the dump. The compost should be screened to 1/4-in. to 3/8-in. particles and be free of inorganic materials, such as shreds of plastic leaf bags. Its moisture content should be between 30 and 50 percent. Any drier and the compost releases a lot of dust as it&amp;#039;s being worked. If it&amp;#039;s any wetter, the material tends to clump and not mix well with soil.  Use slow-release fertilizer for best results. Apply half before seeding, the rest when the grass starts to grow.  Premix top-dressing in a wheelbarrow. Then spread piles at regular intervals around your lawn.  Spread the top-dressing with a wide lawn rake. Work it into the turf so it reaches the bottom of the grass plants. Aerate The Turf Aeration is an important part of any lawn restoration program. It allows grass roots to deeply penetrate the soil, helps fertilizer, organic matter and oxygen get to roots, and helps water penetrate soil. When restoring a problem lawn, aerate once in the fall and again in the late spring. Premix top-dressing in a wheelbarrow. Then spread piles at regular intervals around your lawn. Spread the top-dressing with a wide lawn rake. Work it into the turf so it reaches the bottom of the grass plants. There are several types of aerating tools. The manual varieties, useful for small areas, are hollow cylinders or spikes that you push into the ground, much as you would use a spade. Power aerators work in a similar fashion and are available at rental stores (Photo 15). These machines employ a rotating tillerlike action that pushes the corers into the soil and extracts small plugs as it pulls you forward (Photo 16). These machines will fit into a full-size station wagon, minivan or pickup truck and they require two people to transport them. Aerators penetrate your lawn best when the soil has been moistened by rain or watering. Make several passes, in several directions, over every square foot of lawn. Next, break up all extracted plugs with the back of a garden rake. Then water your lawn thoroughly.  Aerate your lawn with a rental machine like this one. It loosens soil so more oxygen and water can reach the roots.  Aerate your lawn with a rental machine like this one. It loosens soil so more oxygen and water can reach the roots. Overseeding In the North, the best time to overseed is in the fall. By starting in the fall, the young grass plants can establish strong roots and store food for a head start in the spring. In the South, the recommended time to overseed is spring or early summer. Before you begin, choose the seed that&amp;#039;s best for you. Your local Cooperative Extension Service is a good source of advice. There are several tools that will help you spread seed evenly and at the recommended rates. They include lawn seeders and power machines that cut shallow slits in the soil and sow seed at the same time. Lawn seeders are available at rental stores. They are the preferred tool, especially if you were not able to remove all thatch prior to overseeding. Aerate your lawn with a rental machine like this one. It loosens soil so more oxygen and water can reach the roots. The rotary aerator we used extracted 2-in.-long soil cores. These cores easily break up when raked. If you decide to spread seed by hand or with a spreader, first roughen the exposed soil to a depth of 1/2 in. using a rake. Set the spreader to deliver 50 to 75 percent of the seed that&amp;#039;s recommended by the seed producer for seeding a new lawn. If you were not able to remove all thatch, apply seed at the high end of the range. Similarly, the higher the percentage of weeds in your lawn, the more seed you should apply. Start on the edges of the area you are sowing, and work your way to the center. Apply extra seed to bare areas, and lightly cover the seed with a mixture of compost and topsoil. Then cover bare seeded areas with seedfree straw, about 100 pounds of straw per 1000 sq. ft. of lawn. Follow up by rolling all seeded areas with a water-weighted roller to press the seed to the soil. Maintenance All of your work to this point will have been in vain if you don&amp;#039;t care for the young grass plants as they germinate and begin to grow. The most critical step is to apply just the right amount of water to your overseeded lawn. Too little or too much water and the seedlings won&amp;#039;t germinate or will soon wither and die. To ensure the maximum germination rate, soak your lawn on the same day you apply the seed. On the next day, assuming it hasn&amp;#039;t rained, lightly sprinkle or mist the lawn for about 5 minutes in the morning and evening. Be sure you have moistened the soil to a depth of 1 in. Keep the overseeded lawn moist until the young grass plants are 2 in. tall by watering lightly every day it doesn&amp;#039;t rain (Photo 17). This will take four to six weeks. Then resume normal watering patterns. Begin mowing once the new grass is 2 in. tall. Avoid cutting more than one-third the height of the existing grass and keep your grass on the high side, no shorter than 3 in. for cool-season grasses and 2 in. for warm-season grasses. Be sure your blade is sharp and that the lawn is dry. A dull blade, especially when the ground is moist, may tear up the young grass plants. Also, stay off the seeded areas as much as possible, except to apply the rest of the fertilizer as recommended by your soil test.  Keep young grass plants moist. When they grow to 2 in. in height, resume normal watering patterns. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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