How NOT to Sod PLUS how to identify problems & Take Care of New SOD

dude that pisses me off there was a lot I bet you guys spend at least a half a day before this just doing it and now we've got an additional half a day to correct what they did to us we've got a jam-packed show for you today because we are going to be dispelling myths this doesn't need to be over seated so some people say you don't over see Todd you always over see Todd is all sod is 100% sunny mix and when you get it even in slight shade like this it's gonna start to not come in as strong so the best way is to over seed with a Sun Shade mixture or if it's going in pure safe shape over seed with a shade mixture so as this sod is withering away the other seed will come in now you've got a seed really light because if you do a real heavy a seeding what will happen is that this the new seed will begin to compete with the sod and so then they all choke each other out it's like a lose thick the ultimate lose-lose situation [Music] we're also gonna talk how some contractors cut corners and you may have one of those yards that it happened to you on how to identify it and how to correct it because my yard they put it right on class five weight they put sod on class five they all I was just saying earlier in the video contractors cheat I told him to I'm I got a lawn mower black dirt it was a sand class five God that would pistol I'm still watering we're gonna cover how to prep the subgrade and how to prep the finish grade and what the actual difference is between these two very critical elements in your yard and we're also going to talk about some of the mistakes that contractors can make when they're prepping the finished grade versus prepping the subgrade and how that can have long-term disastrous results for a year yard [Music] I don't know if these are jackals these look like Japanese beetles this looks like a Japanese beetle larva to you this is the second one I found in this batch another bad thing that guys do is they will lay sod over existing turf and that will kill the side wait a minute what happened blamed well we got all the black dirt down and then the irrigation people came in and they brought in a trencher when it was pouring rain and trenching new lines and they wrecked all our grade mudded it up and left it yeah you can see this was all perfect you know I was wondered yeah yeah so this is so earlier we had the subgrade done perfectly so we could just spread our black dirt in and have all of the elevation set so the sod would match up perfectly but then the irrigation guys came in and well let's just show you how how things went from there we had this really looking really sharp before so this is from them yeah cuz I was like where the heck did like this come from yeah yeah we had that all cut in nice so we could laid sod we could have just came in we had it all set so it was just feather the soil in Wow okay oh well I guess it happens did they put them at the right elevation well we have the great set perfect with the black dirt and it looks okay okay okay all right you guys you can never tell anything by a camera but we've got this entire yard pitched so that it runs straight down toward that Boulder back there behind me so everything will flow this way and that way because that's the bullet point of this yard [Music] [Applause] this is Todd's gonna actually loosen up that soil and level it out using a hand ring now a typical hard scape break doesn't have that dedicated lip you can see see that it it's got its different set up it's not quite the same but it'll rip through it now a power rake on a tractor or a loader works great for doing this if you don't have a six thousand dollar attachment available that hand rake that he's using right there works just as well well not quite just as well it's a lot more work it's this layer that we want to keep as loose as possible because we want the roots to have some nice tonight a nice medium for themselves to be able to work their way into and if you've got hard clay subsoil it literally will pack as hard as concrete and make it difficult not impossible but difficult to to let your your grass establish if you do have those conditions don't worry a lot of water goes a long way so what I'm actually referring to is you can still grow a lawn but it's gonna take a lot more water and we're gonna actually show you a trick how to fix that in case they did it to you because they did it to Blaine takes the second successful siding for seeding it's what you do right here now I've seen contractors like home builders that do these lots of big projects cheat on this stuff because you got a day's worth of work just getting this stuff done it's very common for a home builder to skip out on this very critical step and they don't want to pay a contractor like myself to do it right and they'll throw sod down right on top of clay this may have happened to use your yard mate and the way to tell is if your yard gets hurt during a hot summer day pretty easily if that happens it means you don't have enough organic material underneath but don't worry you guys you can always black girls over the top of your grass you just have to do it whisper then that's the key [Music] I'm guessing this looked a lot better when you guys left and it does now right perfect yeah that's pretty sad dude that pisses me off it was a lot I bet you guys spend at least a half a day before this just doing it and now we've got an additional half a day to correct what they did to us [Music] so we've already got the initial layer of black dirt laid down this is actually just the top dressing to cover up the ruts and all of the other stuff that happened when the other contractor came in but the way we're laying this down right now is the same way we laid down the first layer feather it out and rake it out so that this layer does not get compacted that's the key component [Music] this is the stage of the game where you gotta try to get it as perfect as possible but without compacting it and so you want to make sure that your subgrade that was the brown soil earlier is really super hyper smooth because that will give you consistent results with this final layer be top layer this top soil needs to say stay a consistent depth and that D is determined by what you do with the subsoil because if you have this much topsoil on one side of the project and this much topsoil on the other side what happens is the site that has this much topsoil is going to compress and in a few years your yard is gonna look wavy like the top of a pool but if you have this much on one side and this much on the other side as they compress as they settle in they settle evenly so consistency with your topsoil layer is really really important I can't stress that enough okay so sod comes with a certain amount of its own black dirt but but in reality that's not enough to depend on solely for it to grow and have the best results so you agree or disagree Blaine wait they put sod on class-five they all I was just saying earlier in the video contractors cheat I told him to I'm like I want a little black dirt this is sand class-five god that would piss - I'm still watering a lot right trying to get that built up over soil over the top every year so you put soil so now that the sod is down I was just saying that hill here - so after the side was down to compensate you know it's not the end of the world you sprinkle and it's not something that you can do once you've got it every couple times spring in fall couple times a year and you're gonna have years ago yeah years and years of doing it goes right through oh yeah yeah oh okay so now that we're putting these in I want to show these guys the joint spacing because we don't line them up like soldiers right so we do a full roll half roll full roll half roll so you can see how they lay these out that's part of the critical success of doing a job like this is getting your joint spacing right another thing another bad thing that guys do is they will lay sod over existing turf and that will kill the sod so what we do is we actually this is how I do it so when I know I know exactly where that goes we can cut that in right there and and you can see all the clean lines so you can see how he's what did you use to make this clean line you guys you use the ASV where they didn't use the skid loader they also use the flat nosed shovel to carve out that and then look at the elevation as well so I always like to leave my side a Titch higher when we try to blend in and a Titch is not a real measurement but use your common sense the reason we say that is because this is actually going to settle in what are you laughing at now Todd just a Titch so another thing that also helps out when we're doing sod is when we got multiple guys running we like to get one guy cutting in while the other guys lay the field because the cut in takes just about as long as the rest of the process and some on some sites what are you shaking your head for Todd what do you use when you cut in yeah but is there a certain knife I mean because we've used flat nose shovels to cut in but your your standard typical cardboard cutter will work great okay all right so we got a piece right here so you cut from the backside cut from the back and then you tuck it in yep put it to bed there we go where do we go that's how she's done now this yard does need to be over seated so some people say you don't oversee Todd yes you do you always oversleep sod you don't oversee tit heavy but you oversee tit because that helps filler in the joint spaces right down there all of these spaces right here throw a little seed in that'll blend everything together also another thing that we need to point out is all sod is 100% sunny mix there is no sod has not grown any other way it's all sunny mix because it's growing in wide open fields where it's got to be Sun tolerant and when you get it even in slight shade like this it's gonna start to not come in as strong so the best way to compensate for that is to over seed with a Sun Shade mixture or if it's going in pure safe shape over seed with a shade mixture so as this sod is withering away the other seed will come in now you got a seed really light really light and you've got to do it time and time and time again there's because if you do a real heavy seeding what will happen is that the new seed will begin to compete with the sod and so then they all choke each other out it's like a lose thick the ultimate lose-lose situation you really today thanks plane I got no word of wisdom before you stand what's that Blaine shut up and start throwing some sod you've been down this road far too long he left you a little behind but still you where are we going with this one you guys are we starting okay so me we're gonna have okay well there's two there's three of us so what Blaine is actually talking about is setting out your pattern initially so you don't have to cross back over your work zone and it's the same as painting yourself into a corner or doing tile work it's just a matter of pre-planning so where you exit is the closest place to where you can actually set up your palette subside I always like to flip all of my corners back because man it's easy to lose track yes all right Billy we got a sprinkler head right here boom now we know right we're right where the sprinkler heads go Mary I'm shooting a video on how to sautee yard I hope you don't mind okay so there's some certain things that you've got to do to keep your sod alive now that its installed you've got a good base in but the most important thing is watering it and checking to make sure that the watering is actually accurate or adequate I should say four because a lot of times people will surface water but they're not watering the subsoil so let me actually show you what I'm talking about so what you'll do is after you're done watering you'll come out and you'll flip over a corner like this okay and what you want to see is that ground moist not mud but just moist like this you can see how this is nice and moist this is a little bit dry right here but this is nice and moist this is perfect and what you'll see is you see these little teeny tiny white roots right there you want to see those like spider webs all over once you once you get to that point then you know your roots starting to adhere to the subsoil okay a couple things to be careful of and I want to show you Japanese beetles are everywhere now the Japanese beetle larva so one of the worst things to a new youth lon are these guys right here marry Japanese beetle now this one I don't think is a Japanese beetle larva but they lay eggs and then they grow up and they get pretty big like this and these guys will cruise underneath your side and all they do is eat at those little tiny white roots that we were talking about right and so you'll find dead spots all over and that means you've got to treat it now you can get treatment for these guys at a number of different places and you want to try to identify the growth stage that they're in if you notice that happening that's because these guys have invaded and they love to go after new sod I mean it's just part of their em all it is it really sucks okay so we put in here so I'm just gonna water it twice a day yep it doesn't matter how often you water it's to make sure that it gets underneath it that's that's more important than how often you water I mean twice a day is a good rule of thumb but if it's a scorcher out you may need to water more often okay there's another one I don't know if these are Japanese these look like Japanese beetles does this look like a Japanese beetle larva to you this is the second one I found in this batch oh look it here's another one they're all over I think these are it I think so I mean if they're not it yeah they eat the root I mean and they're just in there infestation levels that's the third one I found and in just a few minutes well you grab the short run there and I'll grab this one so that means there's eggs in these here rolls asad but that's not to be alarmist if there wasn't eggs in it there would be within a couple days because the Twin Cities area at least is infested with Japanese beetles and so they're on the trees and they're on everything so they come in really fast so next I want to hear from you guys what tips and tricks do you use when you're laying side down now our next video in this series is all about seeding we're gonna take this same job site that we started the backyard and we're gonna seed the front yard this was a strategy that we do offer to our customers as a way of helping them save money we identify high-priority areas inside those lower priority areas get seeded so we're gonna walk you through that process next and as always you guys do me a favor and check out these other two videos that I've put up here right for you guys god bless you guys go get them and let me know some of your sodding tips and tricks in the comments down below