Gaps in 7 weeks sod, liftup sod pieces, dryout?

aialli – posted 21 July 2009 09:59

I just hired my landscaper to layout new sod on my back yard 2 months ago. It was pretty for the first 3 weeks (we watered a lot for the first 2 weeks), then after mowing the lawn for 3 times in June(heavy rain in June),the sod gets worse and worse. It almost become bored around the edge. Our soil is most clay and we have big trees in our backyard. However, I was told the sod is a tall fescue type which should be growing well in shades. Now in July, no more rains and bigger gaps showed up. Many Sod started to dry out, and I can still lift up the sod pieces and found out that the root did not even go through under the sod. It is about 2 months after we installed the sod. Is there anyway to save my sod grass? Thank you.

tommy – posted 22 July 2009 12:22

You need to aerify, which will take cores out of the clay below, and allow the roots to go down. Aerify twice, because you need a lot of holes punched in your poor soil. Aerify the whole yard, and then do it again in a different direction,( criss cross pattern)

aialli – posted 22 July 2009 20:02

Thanks. Can I do it myself by using the 2 hole manual core areator? Or I need to hire people to do it? Or I can rent a tool to do it? Which way is best? I have about 3000sf grass area total. Do I need to do areation for the whole grass field or just those thin area(which is about 25% of the total area, especially along the edge.) Thanks.

tommy – posted 23 July 2009 10:12

The whole yard should be done. Aerators are available at most rental yards, or you can hire a service to do it. Look in the yellow pages under ‘lawn aeration’.