How to Start a New Lawn

Video Transcript

"I'm Bill Elzey, with Showplace Lawns. How to start a new lawn. First thing you want to be sure of is, that the soil that you're putting this on, is weed free. Clear out what's in there. Dig them out, more so than tilling them. When you run a tiller through an area like this, at first, you tend to break off, and leave some roots in the ground, from your weeds. First thing you want to do is, dig up individual areas. Pull them out, making sure you get roots and all. A good way to help you with this would be to solarize that soil, by laying a plastic over it for a period of 10, to 20 days, depending on the time of the year. Let the sun hit that plastic, and some what pasteurize the soil for you, from a weed stand point. After that, as you get ready to put your sod, or your seed in there, you will want to till the area at that point. Add some good compost in there with it. Mix that together. In any of your planting applications, be it grass, plants, trees, whatever, you always want that soil in good condition. And compost gets you there, really fast. Something that is just an ideal, if there is one. Once you have the compost mixed in there, and that soil is ready, you're ready to lay your sod, or plant your seed. If it's sod that you're laying, once the sod is down, spray that sod with some seaweed. Seaweed, and water mix is a good root activator, and will get those roots to really working for you. In either case, be it seed, or sod, you're going to want to water this everyday. The first day get it really wet, and everyday after that, wet it enough to keep it from drying out. That's what's going to get your seed started, and your roots activated, if it's sod, and get this to growing. You will want to do that, again, depending on where you are, and how much rain you get, I'm going to say 10, to 14 days consistent watering. Then the key to this is, once you see growth, in your sod, or the grass is up from seed, you can start backing off, and go back to a more natural watering program. These are all methods for how to start a new lawn."