Sod Installation Guide
Sprinkler Installation
Once the soil is prepared, leveled and smoothed over with a rake, install the irrigation system and bender boards. Make sure the grade is 1 inch below walkways and borders, and 1/2 inch below sprinkler heads. Roll the area with a lawn roller 1/3 full of water. This will firm the soil surface and reveal low areas that need more soil.
Installing Sod
As soon as your sod is delivered, you want to start laying it. Start from the farthest boarder and work your way through the project. When laying sod, stagger end seams as in bricklaying, butt joints tightly, do not overlap edges. Use any serrated knife (preferably one that won’t get used on food again) to cut around sprinklers and trim left over sod pieces. Keep a nice, tight edge when you lay the side and end joints.
Placing Sod
One this we don’t recommend is grabbing a sod roll and tugging it into place. Because as you’re tugging the roll into place, you could stretch it. Sod is like elastic, once stretched, it will shrink up and leave gaps in your lawn. If you need to move a sod roll, grab both ends of the roll and lift then set the roll into place. Slide the whole roll to avoid stretching the sod.
Watering During Installation
Water your turf as you lay your sod. For large lawn areas, you want to give the newly laid turf water within 30 minutes of installation, especially during the hot months of the year. Even though sod has a lot of moisture in it, as it is being laid out, sod needs to stay cool. Small lawns that take less than an hour to lay out can usually wait to be watered until all the sod is installed. But for large lawns, you don’t want to wait all day to water or you’ll stress out your sod.
Rolling Lawn
Once sod has been laid, and watered for five to ten minutes, roll your new lawn lightly with a half filled lawn roller. Rolling will press the sod down ensuring you have very good sod to earth contact and no air beneath the sod. Your rolling is a nice, straight rolling pattern. Try not to weave and curve the rolling pattern unless you’re rolling around a boarder.
Watering for a Healthy Lawn
After rolling the new lawn, turn the water on again for about 45 minutes. Let the water soak in so you get 6” of saturated soiled. Repeat for another hour if you see a lot of run off during the first 45 minutes. Repeat again the next day to keep the root system and soil saturated to promote a deep growth of roots in your soil.
Try to stay off the lawn area for two weeks.