Man Uses Only Home Depot Finds To Smooth & Level His Bumpy Lawn

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

A smooth lawn significantly elevates your property's aesthetics, and it doesn't take long for bumps to ruin the picture. Luckily, correcting your lawn's surface may not require a landscaping crew or heavy equipment, especially if it's a small area. In his YouTube tutorial, George of Princess Cut Lawn Care creates a leveling kit using supplies found entirely at Home Depot. All you'll need is two 50-pound bags of medium-grade sand, Miracle-Gro Moisture Control potting mix, a 36-inch landscape rake, a commercial push broom, and a push cart. He combines the sand with roughly one-third of the potting mix, drops the blend onto shallow yard depressions, and uses the landscape rake's flat edge to draw it across the turf. A gentle pass with the broom works loose material below the grass blades. The technique shows how you can use sand to transform your lawn without burying the existing turf, since the blades remain exposed to sunlight. 

You'll ultimately be able to level an uneven lawn without renting expensive equipment, making it practical for a relatively small yard where ordering a truckload of material would be excessive (and expensive). If you've been procrastinating with these humps and bumps, they may collect standing water or send your lawn mower bouncing with every pass.

It's best to schedule the project near the beginning of the grass's active growing season so it has time to recover properly afterward. Before spreading, give your lawn a short mow and collect the clippings, but make sure you aren't scalping the grass (aka, cutting it too short), which is a common lawn mowing mistake to avoid. Then, dethatch any spots with excessive thatch so the leveling mixture can reach the soil. Because the video's recipe of sand blended with potting mix already contains plant food, you don't need to add more fertilizer at the start. 

Next, deposit small piles of the mix over low areas, flip the landscape rake over, and pull its flat side across the turf. With the push broom, sweep gently in several directions to settle the blend around the grass crowns. Afterward, keep watering the spot lightly and add some fertilizer over a few weeks, allowing grass to grow through before considering another pass. A lawn roller might seem like a logical finishing tool, but you'll want to skip it because rolling can compact the soil excessively, compounding the problem.

You're probably wondering how much this Home Depot haul will set you back. A 25-quart bag of Miracle-Gro Moisture Control potting mix and two 50-pound bags of Quikrete Medium Sand cost about $27 altogether on average. The 36-inch landscape rake adds $69.98, while the push broom and cart shown in the video bring the complete setup to around $283 before tax. To lower that total, you can substitute an existing wheelbarrow, broom, or straight board instead of buying the specialty tools. Play sand is another option, although choosing it over medium sand saves only about $4 across two bags.