To Sod or Seed Your Lawn

To Sod or Seed Your Lawn

The decision for whether to use sod or seed depends on your situation. For instance, sod is better if you have cats, dogs or children, these rascals can make a mess of your seeding job.

With sodding you get an instant lawn, but it is labour intensive at the beginning.

Here are the steps.

First You should order your sod from a sod farm, check your phone book and phone the different suppliers for pricing. Each roll is 1 square yard. You will need to calculate how much sod you will need. Also you need to order the right type of sod for the area you are sodding, there are different type you can order, shade grass, full sun etc. There are different prices per roll also, from around one dollar and up. Ask them what types they have. Then arrange a delivery date for when you will have the site prepared, the rolls sod will start to die and rot if they are not layed down within a couple days, especially if you are having warm weather. Ok then, you need to prepare the site, first if there is existing grass you will need to remove it and then put down top soil about an inch deep, or if the existing soil is good you could go without adding any new soil. Rake it out level, remove any debris like sticks, roots, rocks etc. When you order or receive the sod make sure they give you the fertilizer with it. The fertilizer is suppose to come with the sod. If they don't give you any for some reason, you can get some from any lawn and garden centre and make sure the fertilizer is a low strength, 13-16-10 is what you need to use. Spread the fertilizer on the top soil and use a leaf rake with the tynes pointing up and drag is across the top soil to mix in the fertilizer. If you are sodding areas in the lawn and not the whole area, don't forget to make sure the top of the soil is about one inch below the top level of the existing grass so when you lay the sod it will match and the new sod will not be raised higher than the existing grass. Lay the sod in a pattern like you would bricks on a brick wall. Use a utility knife to cut the rolls to fit. After the sod has been layed you can roll is with a roller to get the sod to make good contact with the soil but it is not critical, next water heavily and this also works good to settle the sod to make good contact with the soil. And just make sure you keep watering heavily for about two weeks. To check to see if the sod is taking root, just pick at random any of the sod pieces and pull up on the corner of it and it should not lift up if it has rooted. If it does not lift it has rooted and you just water as normal. And you can start mowing.

With seeding it takes longer to get you desired results and is a little less labour intensive.

Here are the steps.

What you could do first is rake the area and remove any debris etc. It is best to use topsoil, you could you rooting sand but it is more labour intense to keep moist. When a grass seed gets its first contact with moisture it germinates (or as I like to call it "pops"). After it pops it needs to stay moist or it will dry up and die. With sand as you know does not hold moister very well. A place to use rooting sand is an irrigated yard or field where watering can be done automatically. You can mix sand with topsoil, say 50/50, this would work. After you have removed any debris, apply the topsoil to the area if you need to or you can use the soil that is there already from the flower beds, you can spread the soil so it is level with the existing grass, spread grass seed on and a little bit of 13-16-10 fertilizer on that and use a leaf rake with the tynes pointing upwards to rake in the seeds and fertilizer into the topsoil, you can also roll the area with a roller to make a good seed to soil contact. Make sure you keep the area well watered and moist. You can also put up some kind of barrier to keep out pets and children. Once the grass is long and thick enough you can mow and water as usual. Also there are different types of grass seed to use depending on the area, whether it is in shade, full sun etc. Seeding can take up to one month or more.

Good luck

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