Guides
Good sod.
Good advice.
Short, practical guides for DFW lawns, written by the people who lay the sod. The math, the timing, the watering rules, and the mistakes to avoid.
Guides
Short, practical guides for DFW lawns, written by the people who lay the sod. The math, the timing, the watering rules, and the mistakes to avoid.
One long guide that covers the whole job. Every shorter guide below plugs into it.
Sod is the fastest way to a finished lawn in North Texas: Bermuda for sun, St. Augustine for shade, Zoysia for the soft premium look, laid on prepped Blackland clay and watered daily for two weeks. This guide covers choosing, measuring, prepping, timing, watering, and what it costs installed.
Read the guideThe short guides: which grass, how many pallets, when to lay it, how to prep the ground, and how to water it in.
Measure the lawn in square feet, subtract beds and driveway, divide by 450 (one pallet), add 5 percent for trimming, and round up. A typical DFW front yard is two to four pallets. Use our satellite tool if you want to skip the tape measure.
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Bermuda for six-plus hours of sun and hard use, St. Augustine for shade under pecans and oaks, Zoysia for a soft, dense, premium lawn in sun or part shade. Most DFW yards are decided by sun hours, then by how the yard gets used.
ReadWater new sod within 30 minutes of install, then every day for ten days (twice a day in July and August), every other day in week two, and one or two deep soaks a week after it resists a tug. Register a 30-day variance with your city so the daily watering is legal.
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April through early October, when the soil is warm and Bermuda, Zoysia, and St. Augustine root in two to three weeks. Sod can go down any month the ground is not frozen, but winter sod sits dormant until March and still needs water. Skip the day after a big storm and any heat wave without a twice-a-day sprinkler plan.
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Kill or strip the old turf, grade so water runs away from the house, spread two inches of topsoil, rake it smooth, and test the sprinklers before the pallets arrive. Sod laid straight on compacted North Texas clay or builder fill sits on top of the ground instead of rooting into it, and it thins out by the second summer.
ReadPrep the soil before delivery, lay the sod the day it arrives, start along a straight edge, stagger the seams like brickwork so no joints line up, butt the pieces tight without stretching, cut curves with a sharp knife, and water within 30 minutes of the last piece. One pallet covers 450 square feet and takes two people about two hours.
ReadWho writes this
Every guide is written by the Sod Friend crew. Delivery and installs are done by the crew at Loera’s Landscaping, who have laid sod across Dallas-Fort Worth since 2010.
Sod Friend writes these guides, with writing software used for drafting and tidying. Every rule, number, and price is checked against the sources listed on the guide and the prices on this site. When something changes, we update the guide and the date on it.
We write about sod in Dallas-Fort Worth because that is the one thing we do. If a question is not about that, you will not find a guide on it here.
Reading is free. So is the quote.