sodding an existing yard

[Tim C.]

I have a customer who has lived in a new house for approximately one year. The seeded front yard is not growing as well as they liked and want me to sod it instead. I am thinking that I should kill of the existing grass with roundup, wait a few weeks do a light till and then sod it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Stonehenge]

Tim, that's about it. You'll have to shave out some soil where turf meets sidewalks, so the new sod doesn't sit higher than the sidewalk, driveway, etc, but you pretty much hit all the things you need to do.

[Bill Schwab]

I'm thinking if you can talk him back into seed, you could dress it and overseed with a 50-50 bluegrass, perennial rye mix, give him a watering schedule to keep and his lawn will be better than any sod you could ever install with half the BS....If he is set on sod, you could set your tiller on low penetration, scarify the top and grind in the sparce grass, rake it out or gill it carefully, then lay the sod....

99% of the time when seed does not take I found it was a lazy owner not watering, or, an owner laying down so much water the seed floated away. So, that said, is this client up for properly up for watering sod after you install it?

[Stonehenge]

Bill nailed it.

[HardDaysKnight]

You can use a core-aerator, dress and seed blue/rye as bill
suggested and use a starter fert. The aeration will help
out tremendously. If your client has diligent watering habits
or invests in irrigation, you should be able to renovate his
lawn with impressive results.

[GLAN]

First find out why the first lawn did poorly.

Without knowing that.......can one expect sod to perform different?

[jwholden]

I agree Glan.

If this is new construction there is probably about 1" of topsoil on top of building debris and fill.

1) Get a soil test done and find out what you are working with.

2) Get a soil probe or shovel and dig down six inches deep in several places and see what is down there.

Once you have all the data you have two choices. Either bring in a sufficient quantity of decent soil or compost to amend the existing soil or do a quick and dirty fix which will come up green but be exactly where it is now in one year.

[GLAN]

Typicaly it's 3 things....

Compaction

To thin top soil layer if there is any

Water