Lawn Repair DIY

Despite decent maintenance of our lawn -  regularly mowing, watering, fertilizing and occasional aerating , the quality of our lawn deteriorated to the point that I decided to do do something about it.

There are two main reasons for the deterioration: particles washed off the roof, rabbits sitting on the lawn. The shingle wash off accumulated near the foundation, or later when my roof is guttered, near the downspouts, the surrounding grasses just die. On the other hand, rabbits like to sit on dryer part of the lawn, eating new grasses, which leads to double whammy, no new growth, and their body heat kills grass under them.

Additionally soil erosion where lawn was barren, was serious. 

The worst part of my lawn was at the northeast corner of the garage where there is downspout, and a favorite spot for rabbits to rest. 

NE corner of my garage - barren lawn with serious soil erosion

 Initially I planned to have a service contractor to install sod for us: 1 pallet of Bermuda sod, delivered and installed would cost about 700 dollars. Not too expensive. Since I would repair patches of the lawn, not replace the whole yard, it would be challenging to have the sod placed at the locations I wanted. So I eventually decided to have it delivered to my house at a cost of $295, and we install the sod ourselves.

The pallet of sod was delivered to my yard on Friday morning, March 26th. I bought 11 bags of top soil from home depot at noon for leveling/filling eroded part of the yard.

A pallet of Bermuda Sod

 The portion of the yard that needs repair was along the south and east of the foundation. The south side, is along the flower/bush bed, where the lawn damage was primarily due to gutter run off, and to a lesser extent due to rabbits. The east side damage was primarily from rabbits, and lesser extent from gutter run off.

That afternoon when Lily got home, we started our project lawn repair.

We first fixed the eroded part of the yard along the east wall, using up all 11 bags, 440 lb of top soil. Then we started to lay the sod patch by patch. I patch of sod is not heavy, but it was not easy to carry it. To carry them from the sidewalk to the location was tiring.  After a few trips, we switched mode of transportation, using wheelbarrow to move two patches of sod at a time to the location. 

It took us 2 and half hours to lay all the sods, and it was getting dark when we finished. 

Laying the sod is hard labor. We had sour muscle the next couple of days! The charge of $400 for sod installation is a reasonable price :). 

We turned on our sprinkler to water the newly installed sod and the yard  as a whole. 

 

repaired lawn near NE corner

As one could see from the picture, the grass in the sod was dormant, we need water the sods regularly till the grasses are back to life and start to extend their roots into the ground. Sprinkling is a lazy man's way to do the job, but the sprinklers have blind spots for the sods we laid. We actually used nozzle to hand spray the sod daily for 2 and half weeks.

After three weeks grass on the repaired lawn is greener than existing grass in other places!!

the sod after 3 weeks

NE corner after 3 weeks of new sod

Note - the procedure to DIY lawn repair

1. look sod supplier online using keyword  - sod  

2. buy a pallet or pallets of sod of your choice - a standard pallet of sod covers about 450 square feet

3. buy top soil from home improvement stores (HomeDepot, Lowes etc) or from whole sale supplier

4. have the sod delivered on the day you will work on it

5. fill/level eroded portion of you lawn

6. lay sods at places you need new grass

7. water the sod for next 2 - 3 weeks