Quality Sod Means a Quality Lawn

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Treating sod like any other purchase is a big mistake. Choosing sod for your yard takes much more preparation and care than buying carpet for your living room – at least if you want the installation to be successful.

For most of the things we buy, quality can be broken down into a number of statistics, properties we can measure: the thread count of a sheet, or whether a rug is fire proof or fire resistant. Sod can be inspected in a number of ways too: the thickness of the soil and the price per square foot are two common measurables. However, unlike carpets and sheets, sod is a living, breathing entity, panels or strips of mature lawn, and the condition of the sod coming in has a huge effect on the final look of a lawn.

While it's difficult to place hard numbers on the health of sod, there's a few things you can do and watch for that help ensure you're starting off on a good foot.

Quality Sod Means a Quality Lawn

An important first step when selecting quality sod is – duh! – to select a quality sod supplier. The problem lies in the fact that most, if not all, suppliers tout their quality when asked about it. Skirt past supplier marketing by gathering referrals instead. Did a neighbor recently have awesome looking sod installed? Ask him who he used. If you see a freshly sodded lawn that looks great and it has a landscaping company's ad staked out front, call up the landscaper and ask about their supplier – most landscapers are happy to give out the information.

Once you've narrowed the list down to a few different sod suppliers, call them up and arrange a tour of their fields. The supplier should be located nearby, because otherwise the sod will dry out between harvesting and installation. Examine the grass at the supplier's field. Check its health, making sure that the grass is nice and green and relatively weed -and disease-free.

Ask a few questions about the delivery of the sod while you're there. As I said earlier, sod is a living, breathing entity; to give it the best shot of surviving installation the turf needs to be delivered to your house within 24 hours of harvest. In addition, it should be transported in a covered vehicle designed to shield the sod from the elements, which helps to keep the soil moist.
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Pick the supplier whose grass looks best and who provides the most optimal delivery. It might be expensive, but even cheap sod is expensive, and you don't want to waste your hard-earned dollars on a sub-par product.

After you place an order and select a delivery date, the sod screening process is almost complete. There's one thing left to do: inspect the sod upon delivery. Even if you hand-picked the highest quality sod from the highest quality supplier, transportation issues can devastate a shipment. Check the edges of the sod for drying, yellowing, cracking or wilting – the outer portions dry out the quickest. Touch the sod and make sure it feels moist and not too warm. Warm sod often means the pile has been sitting around for a while, and old sod usually winds up being dead sod. Look for a uniform thickness among the panels or strips.

Reject the shipment if the sod looks sub-par. The delivery guy might get angry, but accepting and installing bad sod could wind up costing you hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Finding quality sod involves a lot of legwork, but doing so provides the best chance of a return on a major investment. You wouldn't buy a car without getting it checked out – treat your lawn with the same respect.