Question
Long Island Gardener Expert:
I've read your replies to other similar questions - but am hoping for more details.

My yard is currently being damaged by a small bob cat that a hardscaper is using to bring rock to my backyard.  I am patient and tolerant and understand this is inevitable based on the weight of the materials coming into the yard.

I live in Baltimore, Maryland and have a 'green' lawn.  (Not Zyogia grass - just regular grass that grows well and tolerates heat well).

The hardscaping/lawn damage will be complete by August 20th.  I understand I'll need a load of hummus/etc. to fill in the tire tracks before I spread seed, etc.

I'm wondering - do I just rake over the new dirt?  Do I need to compact it down?  How do I prevent the tracks form coming back?  Is the dirt going to settle?  Should I wait until Spring?  Should I buy sod instead?  When should I do this?

I'd like to be able to "clean up" this mess without having to pay another contractor to do that "clean up".

Next time I will include 'lawn damage repair' when I make a contract with a hardscaper.

Would love your expert advice and opnion.

Regards,
Roberta

Answer
This is not a big problem, my friend. You should have no trouble repairing the damage.  It would be nice not to have to deal with it, yes, but consider that the repair job you do while inconvenient and cost-incurring (albeit modest) will be superior to the one the contractor would do.  It's better this way.

The tracks as you point out are one problem. You want to fill any holes and make everything even. But have you considered how heavy the equipment is, and the compacted soil under it - especially when those things roll over it while the ground is damp.  Holy smokes.  You do not want to be a molecule of Oxygen living in that compressed soil.  That's the main damage here.

If you by 'green' you mean your Grass receives the gentlest of Organic treatments, you can rest assured it will be able to overcome this damage all by itself.  You can push it in that direction by applying, believe it or not, a generous helping of something that will bring Oxygen and Carbon back into the soil profile where it was squeezed out.  That something is Compost Tea.

I really don't like describing Compost Tea, because it is a pain in the neck to make and really cannot be purchased from anyone.  It just sounds like the kind of thing that people who like to eat Carob Ice Cream and smoke hookahs would be promoting and I am not a Carob-hookah kind of person.  What you basically are doing with Compost Tea is culturaling a garbage-pail-size container of bacteria and protozoa that will multiply into a microbe soup for the Arthropod-Gastropod-Earthworm parts of the Food Chain.  They process that soup efficiently into rich organic matter that will transform compacted dirt into the Humus you mentioned for your tire tracks.  Odd but true.

By the way, your heat-tolerant Lawn (Green now, Khaki colored in the Winter) sounds like Bermudagrass, possibly Tufcote, an improved, cold-tolerant variety developed in the early 1960s by the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station and the USDA. You will need to i.d. your Grass to be able to match it when you overseed.  If you do have Bermudagrass, it is important to match it closely -- different varieties can look like night and day.  If this is Bermuda, you will need Sprigs or Sod -- not Seed.  If this is a heat-tolerant Cool Season Grass please let me know what you are growing so I can get some too.

BTW that's 'Humus' -- Hummus is the stuff you eat with Baba Ghanoush.  I try to keep an open mind on everything, but I don't think you want to incorporate that into your Landscape.

Cool Season Grass is best grown in the late Summer/early Autumn.  Warm Season Grass should be started as soon as possible.  You can apply Compost Tea any time during the Spring or Summer, on soil or turf.  Thanks for your question.