Lynnwood is built tight: retail around Alderwood, houses on smaller lots, and soils that were compacted when the neighborhood went in. Rain runs off roofs, walks, and the mall-side pavement faster than the yard can take it. The old lawn is often a skin over fill and roots. Rolling new sod on top of that skin is why the new one fails in the same places.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98036 · 2020 population 38,141
Replacing a worn-out city lawn
We cut out the old turf, deal with the high roots we can deal with, and loosen the fill. Grade is reset so the yard does not pitch at the foundation. In a fenced yard the pallets come through the gate or over the fence. We plan the path so we are not dragging rolls across a new patio.
Small lawns are a one-day lay after the prep. The prep is the work. If we skip it to hit a price, the sod is a rug.
The ground in Lynnwood
Residential yards here are often a rectangle of tired turf, a fence, and a patio slab that has settled toward the house. The soil underneath is dense. Water sits, moss follows, and a new plant put into that ground without loosening it just stalls.
We aerate and dethatch before we promise a greener lawn, and we look at the downspouts before we sell a flower bed. Pavers and gravel show up on the small patios and the side yards where people actually walk. There is also commercial work along the retail streets — pruning, pressure washing, and beds that have to look kept without a full-time gardener. Native, lower-water plantings make more sense than a hedge that needs shearing every three weeks next to a busy road.
How we do the work
Sod is instant cover and a slow root. It dies when it is laid on compacted clay, on a moss mat, or in a low spot that stays wet. We strip or till, we fix the grade so water leaves, and we lay tight seams on soil that has been loosened a few inches down.
The first two weeks are water and no traffic. After that we want roots chasing soil, which means less frequent watering. A sod lawn that is sprinkled every day forever is a sod lawn that peels up in August.
We lay what arrives that day. Sod that sits on the pallet through a warm afternoon cooks in the roll, and we will not install it.
What we look at first
- What is under the old lawn
- Grade and where the roof water goes
- Access for the pallets
- Sun, because sod in deep shade is an expensive way to grow moss
The first two weeks
Water enough that you cannot peel a corner up by the end of week two. Stay off it. Mow the first time at three inches once it resists a tug. Then ease the water back so the roots leave the roll.
What is under the roll
A few inches of loosened soil and compost, graded to leave the house. Not the old lawn. Not landscape fabric. Not a sand bed that turns into a pan. If we cannot prep, we should not lay sod.
Seams and edges
Tight, staggered, no overlap. Edges tucked against beds so the mower does not scalpel a flap. We cut curves with a knife, not by stretching a roll around a corner until it tears.
More from this crew
- Sod installation across Snohomish County
- Lawn seeding in Lynnwood
- Lawn aeration in Lynnwood
- Landscaping in Lynnwood
- Lawn fertilization in Lynnwood
- Sod installation in Edmonds
- Sod installation in Brier
- Sod installation in Mountlake Terrace
Sources for the climate and the water
- USDA plant hardiness map for choosing plants that can take a Snohomish County winter.
- EPA WaterSense on watering less once a lawn or a new planting is established.
- EPA Soak Up the Rain on keeping roof and yard water from becoming someone else’s problem.
