Question
We moved into our new house in october of last year when the bermuda sod had just been layed down so we didn't know that there was solid clay underneath. We live in west tennessee. I am  going to use your sugar suggestion in my flower beds and on my lawn. The lawn so far is pretty  green but still has lots of weeds. I am interested in improveing the clay but I dont want to dig up or till the lawn so that it dies. Can I just arrate lightly and lay down a thinner layer of the peat moss/ humas/cedar bark mixture?  Also can I put down the granulated gypsum now? Would I be wasting time with the sugar if its mostly all clay underneath the grass?  

Answer
Hi staphanie;
NOPE!
Don't put down a thinner layer of those now. for the bark mulch to do any good, it needs to be tilled in.
You can top dress with the humus and peat moss, but be very sparing, especially with the peat moss lest you make your soil too acid.
If you just don't want to till it all up, which would be by far the quickest, you can just put down abut an inch of granulated gypsum, and water well. whe it has all disolved, put it down again.
It will take a few years for the gypsum to work down to loosen it up as far as it needs to, but eventually it will.
One thing you can do is bring in a big load of earthworms.
Those little buggers will tunnel in and get to work.
The tilling up and starting over will get you a pretty lawn this year, the worms and all the other stuff will take a few years, but you can start with the sugar and the other organic remedies right now, in fact, if you spend money on earthworms, you better have a healthy enviornment for them or they will just die.
water well to wash it all out if there are insecticides or week killers in the soil, before you put the worms in.
You don't have to have a dump truck full of earthworms, but the more you have, the faster they will get that earth tilled.
Organic fertilizers that will not harm your soil critters will help keep the grass and other things you plant doing ok till the soil is conditioned well.
When you plant a shrub, tree or anything where you have to dig or till an area, do the soil conditioning in that area.
for trees, rose bushes and shrubs, dig a hole twice the size the directions call for, and deeper, and make the mix of peat,humus, and bark mulch, and mix it with some of the dirt that came out of the hole, so it is a half dirt and half mix, mixture, and fill the hle with that. that wil make good loose soil for that shrub etc to grow in.
You can also make the mix, and mix it with soil that you can dig up from somewhere else in your yard, or anywhere you can dig some up (legally.LOL) and when your grass is about 4 or 5 inches tall, put a couple of inches of the mixed soil on top of it and water it well to settle it.
You want about 1 or 2 inches of grass blade sticking out to get the sun.
That will put down more good dirt, and the grass will put out more roots and send up new growth. In a very few weeks, your lawn will be full. You can keep doing that until you have that 6 or 8 inches of good soil.
Just to make sure, every time you put a few inches of new soil on top of the grass, I would also throw some sugar down, maybe not as much each time, but you can put as much as you want safely. It won't burn or harm your grass or anything.
Burmuda spreads by runners, and any grass that sends out runners will put down new growth if you put soil on to of those runners.
The granulated gypsum will keep working its way down through the years. It doesn't wear out, it just works down deeper. so over the following years, it will just keep emending the clay further down.
ou can let the grass grow, add some more soil, and do that a coule of times this year, and still have a good looking lawn most of the year. with burmuda, it should start to cover well in 3 or 4 weeks, then you can enjoy it a few months and do it again, so it has time to put up some good coverage before the last mowing of the year, then do it again in the spring when it gets tall enough.If you put down 3 inches of the soil mixed with the amendements, after it settles with waterings, you will probably have about an inch of good topsoil.
With conditioning wih gypsum ( I would keep that up for a couple of years, doing it 3 or 4 times a year, and adding good soil, and letting the earthworms and other tunneling critters work, and you should have a pretty nice lawn. Four or five years should show you with a really good lawn.
Did you read what i have written abiout cockroaches being beneficial in the soil, and how to keep them out of your house?
Charlotte