How to Lay Sod Over Existing Lawn

How to Lay Sod Grass Over Your Existing Lawn

Newly planted sod grass complements your landscape features, adds aesthetic appeal for your property and reduces lawn upkeep general, since it has already undergone upkeep and care linked with seeding. Though installing new sod calls for much less care and upkeep procedures than seeding, the prep function needed for laying it directly over grass is virtually the same, because it need to are available in make contact with with freshly turned soil to take root. Ideally, you should lay new sod when the soil reaches a temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

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1. Collect as a lot debris out of your yard as you possibly can, like non-ornamental rocks, twigs and rubbish, and location it within a bin. Move all landscaping features away in the places you are going to lay sod.
2. Pull as many weeds as possibly by hand. Apply an herbicide containing the active ingredients MCPP, dicamba or glyphosate to any remaining weeds.
3. Rake the yard completely, collect all remaining debris and place it within the bin. Mark the area you may lay new sod with gardening paint. It is ideal to start laying your new sod against a fixed surface, including a sidewalk or a side in the house.
4. Till the soil to a depth of 6 inches with a mechanized tiller to break up the grass and its root system. Apply ten pounds of 10-20-10 starter fertilizer per 1,000 square feet of tilled soil. Spread 1 inch of compost more than the tilled soil and till to a depth of 4 inches to incorporate.
5. Position the tines on the heavy-duty tarmac rake next to a fixed surface in the lawn, for example a sidewalk or driveway. Rake the soil you will sod inside a straight line from beginning to finish in the marked area, growing pressure around the rake as you strategy the finish on the row. The objective is to generate a 2 percent slope inside the sodded region to permit for water runoff. The ground need to drop 1 foot each and every 50 feet to create a two percent slope.
6. Return for the starting point on the row, and rake once more until the soil measures 1 inch beneath the degree of the fixed surface. This makes it possible for the layer of sod to match flush together with the fixed surface.
7. Tamp down the location where the soil meets the fixed surfaces in the lawn using a hand tamper. Examine the yard for any depressions or holes, and fill them with soil as necessary having a scoop shovel. Fill the lawn roller’s drum three-fourths filled with water.
8. Position the yard roller where you started preparing the soil for the new sod. Run the lawn roller over the soil row by row, just as you prepped it, till uniform.
9. Water your lawn with 2 1/2 gallons of water per square foot, and enable the soil to settle for a week.
10. Moisten the soil lightly with a garden hose, and place the open finish from the roll of sod where you began prepping the location. Unroll the sod down the row, starting a new roll as required. Get rid of excess sod from the end in the row with all the blade of a utility knife.
11. Unroll one more roll of sod around the opposite side from the yard exactly where you began, beginning a new roll as required and removing excess having a utility knife. Return to the side from the yard where you began.
12. Unroll an additional roll of sod down the row, this time cutting it two feet shorter to stagger the abutting layers. Finish laying the roll of sod, and return to the opposite side and repeat, cutting each abutting layer 2 feet shorter than the longer 1 subsequent to it. Alternate amongst longer and shorter layers to create a brick-wall pattern.
13. Continue laying sod on opposite sides until it meets in the center of the yard. Fill in all seams with soil and tamp them down. When you have space inside the center, cut sod lengthwise as required to fill it in. Should you notice unevenness in the height from the sod, spot soil underneath the shorter layers to make uniformity in yard height.
14. Eliminate half in the water in the lawn roller, and go more than the lawn once again, row by row, to release air trapped underneath. Water the sod each day till it takes root within the soil.

Tips

• Wear gardening gloves when removing debris and pulling weeds from your lawn.
• Location the organic matter you collect from the yard when preparing it for sod inside your compost pile.
• Adhere towards the herbicide's manufacturer's instructions and safety precautions when applying herbicide.
• Verify if your sod has taken root by gently tugging on it. Should you really feel resistance, the sod has taken root.