How do you smooth ruts caused by car or truck?

C

Chris in TX

Forum Newbie
One week last month we had rain from about 1pm Thurs thru Sun afternoon. By 10pm Fri we had had about 6" of rain. About 11:30pm Fri someone in a car and someone in a truck drove up into my mom's yard. It looked like a (probably) 4x4 truck. They left big ruts that are like 9" wide and probably 3-4" deep. They hit two hedges, and the garage. Uprooted the hedge second from the house.
How can I smooth the ruts back out? It is a royal pain to mow her yard. The car's tracks are about gone, so those are no problem. It is mostly St. Augustine, with a few weeds.
 
Chris in TX said:
One week last month we had rain from about 1pm Thurs thru Sun afternoon. By 10pm Fri we had had about 6" of rain. About 11:30pm Fri someone in a car and someone in a truck drove up into my mom's yard. It looked like a (probably) 4x4 truck. They left big ruts that are like 9" wide and probably 3-4" deep. They hit two hedges, and the garage. Uprooted the hedge second from the house.
How can I smooth the ruts back out? It is a royal pain to mow her yard. The car's tracks are about gone, so those are no problem. It is mostly St. Augustine, with a few weeds.
Click to expand...

I had a similar thing happen to one of my customers' lawns where a truck that was doing work on the inside of the house patched out when trying to drive out of their yard: http://www.lawnmowerforum.com/attac...009d1349398212-muddy-mowing-dscn0368-copy-jpg
The homeowners did what was suggested in earlier posts.
 
I have alot of trouble with this but on buffalo or bermuda grass. I usually wait for it to dry well and rake the sides of the rut into the low spot. Then I wait until after a rain for the clumps to soften and break up, I encourage the break up by tomping with a board. Then I add just enough dirt to make it slightly higher than the sod. That spring I seed it with annual ryegrass very thick while the ground is very wet from soaking rains. As a rule the areas are grown back to the surrounding grass by the following spring. I mow right over them after the area is filled in with dirt. The biggest frustration I run into is squirrels digging and redigging the soft area to bury walnuts and stray tomcats digging in it during the very hot dry part of the season.
 
I talked to my mom, and she is going to ask her landlord if he is going to fix it first. If not we will go thru the thread and decide what to do. Thanks for all the replies.
 
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