How to Remove Grass to Prepare for Sod Installation
In this video, Houston Grass Owner Michael Romine describes how to remove grass sod from your project area in order to prepare for laying new sod. Houston Grass sells St. Augustine grass varieties, Bermuda grass varieties, and Zoysia grass varieties with quality second to none in the Houston area. Call 281-431-7441 for a quick quote for your project and answers to your questions.
Here’s Michael’s description of how to remove old grass sod.
Summary of How to Remove Grass Sod
How to remove grass sod? We remove sod primarily with a sod cutter that takes a 12 to 16 inch strip of grass out after the grass in the area is good and dead with Roundup. You take as little dirt as possible and it scrapes it off and leaves nothing but the bare dirt there. There are several brands at Lowe’s and Home Depot of these machines but they all pretty much work the same way, and that is the advised way to take grass out of the yard that’s been contaminated with weeds or Bermuda grass.
The cheaper way to do this is to start by kill the old grass and weeds with a Roundup application. Then you use a weedeater to cut the grass down. Turn the weedeater upside down and cut it down absolutely as low as you can to the dirt. Then you rake up all of that dead material, bag it up and get it out of there. And then lay the grass down on top of that.
The weedeater method is a cheaper way to remove grass. You don’t have to rent the sod cutter. But if you use the weedeater method, you can create some problems for yourself. There’s going to be some dying grass and some rotting grass. If it doesn’t all rot evenly it might settle unevenly.
You’re probably going to have to water more upfront to get the air pockets out with the uneven ground surface. It’s very important when you lay new grass sod, to get the air pockets out. You want as much dirt on dirt contact, meaning the dirt on the bottom of the grass rests directly on the dirt on the surface of your project area.
You want as much dirt on dirt contact and then water that dirt, so that it kind of sandwiches together and gets rid of the air pockets. If you do not get rid of the air pockets, the new roots will start to grow out of the bottom of the block of grass and then when they hit an air pocket they die, and so that is one of the problems with doing that.
That is also a problem if you do not water enough. The purpose of the heavy watering that first day is to get rid of those air pockets and seal it to its new home.
All of the grass sod from Houston Grass comes from our family farm in Bay City Texas. Our family has been raising grass on that farm since 1981, so we know what it takes to grow grass with quality second to none.
Get the Help You Need to Remove Grass
Houston Grass offers sod removal and grass installation services. If you’d like an estimate for removing your old grass sod from your project area, please call us at 281-431-7441 today!
