Planting a Lawn

Are you planting a lawn on an empty piece of soil, or are you planning on removing your damaged lawn to start fresh? Would you like to start from seed, or do you want to lay down fresh sod to produce an instant lawn?

Unless you have a severely damaged lawn, it is probably best to work with what you have and improve upon it as opposed to planting a lawn from scratch. Even a very damaged lawn can be brought back to life and improved upon to the point of health and vitality.

Photo courtesy of Peter Kaminski

While the idea of replacing your weed-ridden, damaged lawn might seem like a good idea, there are many steps involved in such a process, some of which may lead to bigger problems than you had intended. I watched one of my neighbors rip up his lawn (he literally tore off the sod – I believe he had it scrapped off with a power tool that accomplishes this) and til the soil in preparation for the new grass seed that he was going to spread. As you can imagine, this process was quite time consuming and labor intensive.

While he had good intentions, because of the fact that he had removed a pre-existing lawn, he had lots and lots of weed seeds laying dormant in the soil. When he tilled the soil, it actually activated those seeds that now had plenty of room to grow with the top layer of sod removed. Those weeds quickly and fiercely covered the entire area, and he had to deal with weed removal before planting a lawn.

As I’m sure you’re aware, weeds grow much much faster than grass seed, and as a result, he was forced to work with sod once he was able to bring the weed situation under control. He certainly would have been much better off if he had decided to improve his damaged lawn instead of removing it. Please take this into consideration if you are working with an established lawn.

Working with an established lawn could involve techniques such as regular lawn fertilization, proper mowing techniques, over-seeding and routinely aerating your lawn. If you’re hoping to accomplish something more drastic, you may consider cutting the grass as short as possible, and scraping or slicing the soil to create a bed for new grass seeds to germinate.

If you have your heart set on starting a lawn from scratch(I can relate, I have this same desire) you may want to research the cost involved in hiring a landscaping service. They have the proper equipment to get the job done, and are able to do it much more quickly. Getting it done fast will help with weed prevention. They also may offer some type of guarantee for sod replacement if the grass dies prematurely.

Planting a lawn in untouched soil is the best method for establishing a brand new lawn. This article from the Illinois Cooperative Extension Department discusses the entire process in great detail, and will help you decide whether you want to establish your lawn from seed, or if working with sod will be more appropriate for your situation. If you do decide on planting a lawn with sod, please keep in mind that you will need to water the new sod every single day to ensure it does not die on you! Sod is fragile for the first couple of weeks, and even months, so you will need to provide a lot of care early on until the grass is well-established.

Planting a lawn from grass seed or sod...repairing or replacing a damaged lawn...the most important thing to remember is that maintenance is the key to maintaining the healthy turf you’ve created!

Happy turfing!

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