Backyard used to have turf with lots of loose stone. Hired a company at the end of May to remove turf, put down 6 yards of topsoil, and sod. Watered and kept off the lawn for two weeks and the grass looked fantastic. However, over the course of the summer the inner portions were dieing and the only parts that are hanging on are the edges of the sod.
Planning on aerating and overseeing this fall, but curious if there could be anything else going on here.
by handsonthehomerow
23 Comments
It needs water badly.
That just looks crispy as can be , aeration and overseed is probably the way to go
You need to water your lawn… and to stop using a Scotts spreader.
It needs water. The other thing is that grass under a tree never does well unless it’s for heavy shade, like fine fescue for example.
The tree is absorbing a lot of the grasses water. Definitely look at overwatering
You mentioned that sod was installed at the end of May. I have a few questions:
• What type of sod was used?
• How often, and for how long, did you water after installation?
• If you pull on the sod now, does it lift up?
When sod is first installed, it needs frequent watering for the first few weeks to a month. Since it doesn’t have an established root system, you don’t want long, deep waterings. Instead, the goal is to keep the top few inches of soil consistently moist so new roots can develop. Once the sod takes root, you gradually adjust your watering to encourage deeper root growth. The exact frequency depends on the grass variety.
From the picture, it looks like the sod may not have been watered properly. Watering only three times a week could explain the issue. Because there are gaps between the pieces, water likely pooled along the seams, keeping the edges moist while the centers dried out. It’s hard to say from one photo whether the centers are fully dead without knowing the type of grass.
As for overseeding, I’d be cautious. Whether or not overseeding makes sense depends on the type of grass. Many sod varieties are not typically overseeded, and you don’t want to introduce a different type of grass than what was installed.
A newly sodded lawn should be treated differently from an established lawn—it requires a different watering routine, fertilizer schedule, and herbicide program.
Needs water, yesterday. You may want to go ahead and over seed it this fall. You’re going to lose a lot of that sod due to not watering enough
It’s definitely a water problem.
I am unable to irrigate my lawn, so most of mine in the Northeast looks like that. Mine is very healthy and ready to come back from dormancy real soon.
It’s hard to tell whether yours is sleeping safely, or too crispy.
Im no expert but im guessing more water. Im also guessing you have good grass along the seams because its the path of least resistance for the water to flow down or pool in.
It looks like drought. I can usually tell by the hue of the grass and when the leaf blades roll into straws. But I’m Florida. This still has the hue of grass in need of water.
The tree is drinking the water for your sod. Irrigate longer only in this area.
Turn on your sprinklers. Now.
3x a week is not enough even for established grass is the hot dry weather. It needs two ADDITIONAL deep soaks per soaks per week even once established.
Also, I would maybe hold off on aerating until it’s more established, and keep it at 4in
Tree is housing the water
You need to call me. It may be to late.
“It looked great until I backed off watering, whats wrong?!”
Water more.
You are underestimating how much water a lawn needs
Is your soil extremely compacted? Either way, WATER
Water, water and more water. I just had blue grass sod installed and have been watering it every day for 45mins 2x a day. You need a hell of a lot more watering especially with this summer heat.
Water water water and pound the lawn with nitrogen
If you watered as well as you state in some comments here, then the condition of the soil and root pack of the sod is surely to blame. Water is getting through the joints, but not the bulk of the transplanted sod.
It reminds me of the issue I had with my lawn. Plenty of watering yet acted like I wasn’t. I pay for professional fertilizer, pesticide, and weed control applications, so I was confident it wasn’t any of that.
Skipping all the details about how it got this way, I discovered that the ground in some areas had become compacted and hydrophobic (related in my case to the drought conditions we actually had a couple years earlier; in your case likely from already dense sod getting compacted on pallets). I rented an aerator and did the entire lawn, then used my hose-attached pesticide sprayer with a heavy amount of dish soap inside (maybe 2:1 water and soap), and sprayed all the areas that refused to get wet from normal irrigation.
It sprang back SO FAST! Within 2 days I could see a significant improvement, and within 2 weeks I had to look for the areas that had been struggling, to see any remaining hint of that.
I recommend doing the same. Flag your sprinklers so you don’t damage them with the aerator, punch holes in that sod, and apply some dish soap in case that is also part of your issue. It won’t hurt the lawn (at least when used within reason). If that helps for a bit but it starts to struggle again you might want to use a commercial product like Revive.
By the way, spike aeration just further compacts the soil in this kind of situation. You need core aeration to alleviate that issue.
Good luck!
Not enough water when watering, not watering often enough, and that tree is very thirsty.
Recent sod needs to be squishy for more than a few weeks.