How to Lay Sod in a Backyard | Ask This Old House

[Music] when I go to put a lawn in someone's house the first thing I want to do is assess a couple of the sight conditions the first is a sun sod needs full sun to grow well and obviously we've got that here the other thing I like to check is the top soil we take and use this soil probe I'm going to push it down into the ground and it will tell me how deep the layer is and here it's good 6 or8 Ines and that's great now we're going to take a look the soil itself and check it for texture see how when I push on it it clumps together that tells me it's a little on the heavy side so we're going to thin it out a little bit as part of our preparation but before we can do any of that we got to get rid of all this ugly grass you ready I am now a lot of people would roota till this old grass into the top soil couple problems with that you got to rake out all those little clumps and if you don't get them all up you'll end up with a bumpy lawn the other is there's a lot of weeds in here and if they don't come out they'll end up coming through right into your new lawn so what I like to do to remove the grass is use a saw cutter this is a gas engine on it and a blade underneath that vibrates goes underneath the grass cutting it off at root level so what I'm going to do is start cutting a lawn you're going to grab the wheelbarrow load it up as quick as you can and get it out of here [Music] what I want to do now is loosen this soil and we need to do that so the roots can go way down into the soil it makes for a stronger drought resistant lawn in order to do that I'm using this big hydraulic tiller and I'm going down about 6 or 8 inches deep into the soil but I can't get over next to the fence so I'm going to have you use this mini tiller to get that area if you look stand this right up go up on the other end got the onof right here we're on on you all set yep okay take can bring it right over all right you're going to find it pulls better on the back stroke so let it run up pull back a [Music] [Music] [Music] what we're going to do now is we're going to cover this whole area with two Ines of this sand compost mix I made up what is I took some sand and compost mixed it together 50/50 we're going to add this to the soil and it's really going to help with the structure of the soil with the compost and the drainage with the sand okay make a great medium for these roots to grow down into okay so spread it out 2 in and I'm going to cover the whole place with it and then we'll roota till it again all right [Music] yep down here in this corner of the yard we're not going to put down side we're going to take and dig it out about 4 in deep and put in playground chips to make sure we don't get any soil mixed in with the playground chips we're going to put down landscape fabric right up to the fence let's get the other one good bring it in a little bit to that edge I made that looks pretty good we'll put the wood chips in and then we'll trim this off got to make them thick enough the kids can play and not go through to the fabric all right look at this soil this is unbelievable that sand and compost we added really created a great soil structure for our sawad to grow in now we're going to add a couple of things the first is St fertilizer that helps the grass grow but more importantly it'll help the roots grow and that's what we need to get the grass established then we're going to add some lime this will help lower the acidity of the soil and that'll also help the grass grow how do you know how much to put down you read the directions on the bag come on let's get it down so we can put some grass down there setting's all good here we go all right the last step is finish grade this is our last chance to get everything nice and level in the cover cover up any footprints that might be in here before we put the saw down going to take my time and make sure it's absolutely perfect all right here's your lawn each one of these pallets contains 500 square ft of Saw it's going to take three pallets to do your yacht now this is a mix of Bluegrass and Fescue grown under perfect conditions for 14 months yesterday morning they came in and they cut the saw rolled it up and put it on the pallet stored it in a BN overnight to keep it nice and cool and then shipped it up to us this morning it is so important for a successful saw job to get fresh saw and put it down right away well let's get to it okay we'll roll this one up you can drop it right in the wheelbarrow we'll fill the wheelbarrow up and head into the backyard all right bring that in nice and close so we don't have to walk too far with it that's good right there okay every piece of saw we put down you're going to take it just like this m and I want it with this Edge facing to the right watch what's going to happen here now if we do it right and I set it where I want I can just flip it down like that and that's how quick we can go now give me one more piece right here tongue against this end hey hey see your big feet y this ground is so soft that you're going to leave big imprints stay behind where we're going to roll out okay now look over here once we get this in this secret to a good saw job is marrying this joint together when you're done you should not be able to tell where the joints are how's that look pretty good looks beautiful give me another one all right now because our soil is so nice and soft we have indentations from where we were working before so we're just going to run the rake over it quick then we can put down our next piece of Saw but we're going to do something different with this piece of sord we're starting a new row and if I let them stay full length we want to make sure there's no place that has a continuous joint in the sod oh like laying down bricks right a staggered Bond so what I'm going to do is take this piece use this razor knife and I'm going to cut it in half and we're going to save that cuz we're going to use it in another row now just give me a hole piece we drop that right in place marry it there we go right by our joint Perfect all right let's breake out a little more and then we can lay down some more sord all right hold on one sec well the sod's down now comes the most critical step and that's watering you're going to have to water this lawn three times a day the first week twice a day the second week once a day the third week and after that put it on your regular cycle got it so what do you think I think it's beautiful I can't believe that just a few hours ago this was bumpy uneven it was a mud pit now it's a beautiful lawn uh I know I love it but the kids are going to absolutely love it I can't wait to see the kids running around going crazy out here absolutely thank you very much you're welcome [Music]

Channel: This Old House

Views: 2,505,551

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Sod, Backyard, Gardening (Interest), Do It Yourself (Hobby), grass, Landscape Architecture (Industry), Landscape (Industry), yard, soil(Interest), Home Repair (Interest), diy (Website Category), Green (TV Program), roger cook, Norm Abram (TV Personality), Tom Silva (TV Personality)

Id: CdtEtpNZ_dY

Length: 9min 43sec (583 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 25 2015