No you are not going about it correctly. Not to be harsh, but whoever you are listening to or are reading, stop it! I'm not sure where to begin, so I'll just try to cover it all. RoundUp is not a preemergent and has no residual preemergent barrier effect. Roundup kills living plants and does nothing about seeds. Rototilling the yard might be appropriate for you but ONLY because of the rocks. Generally rototilling would have been the worst mistake in your plan. Whatever you read that suggested that...you can just disregard everything in that article or book, because they don't know what they're talking about. For rocks there are some machines affectionately called clinkers. I'm not sure what their official name is. They rake the soil about 2-3 inches deep picking up rocks and depositing them on a conveyor belt while allowing the soil to sift back through the conveyor belt. The machine rattles with all the rocks and metal stuff so it's called a clinker. If you can find a clinker for rent within a hundred miles, I would be surprised. What you can do is rake it up yourself, without rototilling, and hand pick out the rocks. Or you can hire some laborers to do that. It's probably worth it to hire it done or hire them to help you do it. If you rent a rototiller, set it to only minimally dig into the soil. In fact you might be able to rent a dethatcher, power rake, vertical mower, or slit seeder to get a better effect. Those machines all have vertically rotating bladed that can be set to dig into the soil at a specified and controlled depth. Rototillers are completely uncontrolled at best and dangerously uncontrolled at worst. Not only that but they cause your soil to become bumpier and bumpier starting now and continuing for 3 years. Never use manure in your garden. First of all it stinks. Secondly it stinks for weeks and weeks (and weeks and weeks). Now if you really meant to say, "composted manure," well then that is called compost and is never referred to as manure. Compost can be distinguished from manure because finished compost smells as fresh as a forest floor after a summer rain. Your nose knows when compost is finished composting. If there is any subtle hint of manure, or mold, or a rank, dank, sour, ammonia or anything that does not smell like fresh soil, then it is not finished composting. As for the seeding part of your plan, it all depends on where you live. If you live north of Alabama or in the mountains, you may be have time to seed, but that window is rapidly closing. Spring is a poor time to seed new grass for a couple of reasons. If you can do it now, do it. If you live in the south then neither now nor spring is the right time for seeding. However if you want to put down sod, you can do that now or whenever in the north or south. So, where do you live? If you live in a suburb of SoCal, then please be sure to name it and not just say you're in SoCal. There is waay too much variability in climate and soil in SoCal to give blanket recommendations. Having said all that, have you asked for estimates from landscapers? They will bring in a tractor with a box blade to scrape the surface. The box blade takes out all the weeds and preps the soil in one pass. A skilled tractor driver could do your yard in an hour. If they try to do it with a skid steer or bobcat it might take a full week, so the tractor is the only way to go. It will leave the surface of the soil loose enough to get those stones. Then you might be able to rig up a sieve to filter out the rocks from the soil. I would use 1/4-inch hardware cloth from a box store in a 2x4 framework.

Did you soak the peat pots to saturation and poke holes in them or remove the plants from the pots before planting? If not the roots may be confined to the pots. These pots do not decompose quickly if not prepared properly prior to being planted. Mine will usually be gone by the end of the first season but most report them still whole after a couple of years. The special water soluble fertilizers, metered to the roots so that nothing is wasted and maximum growth is obtained in a very short time and the ideal growing conditions these plants receive in heated greenhouses make for large blooms on attractive plants. This makes them sell better but results in slower cycling and smaller blooms when they enter the real world. Excvessive heat and the hot sun typical in your area in the summer forces the buds to mature and open sooner so they don't get as large as they would under cooler less sunny conditions. Many commercial growers use shade cloth and/or high powered fans to keep conditions such that they allow the buds to develop longer, thus they are larger. Heavy use of pesticides keep disease and insect pressure at a minimum. Then you buy this coddled plant and suddenly it's forced to survive in the real world. You should read the material available to the plant industry listing the products and advice given to growers to maximize bloom size to make an attractive plant. Having attended large winter horticultural supplier shows, I'm on many grower mailing lists and privy to much of this information. I don't wonder why plants often don't do well after purchase but why they do as well as they do.

I live in Huntsville and visited Dutton once. The elevation was higher than Huntsville so it was much cooler and breezy, while back home in the valley we were sweltering. You will enjoy it. The only things you won't be able to grow well are lilacs and tulips...they will be annuals there. The soil is heavy clay and will need lots of compost to aerate it, but once prepared will grow things well. If you plant Rhodos or Azaleas, plant very high and mulch around the root ball, as they will choke to death planted in heavy soil. This is true of many plants, as drainage is poor and winter is rainy. Many plants, like lavender and thyme, do better in pots. Our temps usually go from 20s in winter and 100s in summer, though 0 and snow happens now and then. You will be within easy driving distance to some world class nurseries, especially in Winchester, Tn. Good luck!

I have used a 20 gallon pot sunk into the ground to plant one in to keep the color for my blue es from changing from blue to pink . Is that what your trying to do? If so it helps but you may still need to add soil amendnents. I would use the biggest pot you can get your hands on and put a few inchs of rock in the bottom so it can drain well. I have also used thick black plastic in the same way making a really big hole and lining all the way around it (not the bottom ) with the plastic to keep color stable .