Sod installation before and after: overgrown yard to new lawn

Sod installation was the fix for this yard. There was too little healthy grass left to overseed, so the overgrowth came out, new sod went down, and an interlock border and mulch finished off the beds.

What did the yard look like before and after?

Before, it was a side yard of tall, straw-coloured grass and weeds with no lawn or bed edges you could pick out. The photo looks toward a two-storey house with a stucco upper floor and a brick lower floor, with a tall spruce at the corner.

Clumps of weeds, tall grass stalks and a few untrimmed shrubs fill the foreground. A mound of loose soil sits on the left. The top of a low concrete wall shows behind the grass.

After, the same yard is a full lawn of new sod with faint mowing stripes. It finishes neatly against a concrete walkway on the left. The concrete walls now have mulched beds along the top, with small evergreen shrubs and a few boulders.

In the foreground, a curved border of light-coloured interlock pieces separates the lawn from a bed of reddish-brown mulch around a young spruce. A second curved bed on the right holds a young tree. The trees behind the house are turning orange, so the after photo was taken going into fall.

Why lay new sod instead of overseeding?

Because once a yard is mostly tall weeds and dry, weedy grass, there’s little healthy turf left for seed to thicken. The weeds had also hidden the shape of the yard, so the grass and the planting had grown into each other.

Sod gives you a full lawn on day one. Seed has to sprout and fill in, and heavy rain can wash it off bare ground first. Purdue Extension notes that sod is a popular choice where erosion has to be cut down quickly.

That mattered here. The lawn runs right up to a sunken area walled in with concrete, and bare soil next to a drop like that can wash down into it in heavy rain. Our sod installation page covers what that job includes.

What does a sod installation like this involve?

A yard in this state usually goes like this:

1. Clear the overgrowth: tall grass, weeds and their roots, down to bare soil, so the sod sits on dirt and not on dead growth.
2. Grade and rake the soil smooth, filling low spots so water drains away from the house and the sod lies flat. Purdue Extension advises a rough grade that slopes gently away from the house. See our guide to preparing a yard for sod.
3. Mark out the bed lines and set the border. Here that was a curved row of interlock pieces set in the ground.
4. Lay the sod in rows with the joints butted tight and staggered like brickwork, cut to fit along the walkway and the curve. Purdue says sod should be laid within 24 hours of being harvested.
5. Roll the new lawn lightly so the sod presses into the soil with no air pockets, then water it thoroughly right away.
6. Spread fresh mulch on the beds, kept back from the base of trees and shrubs.

Why put an interlock border between the lawn and the beds?

A fixed border stops the lawn creeping into the beds. Kentucky bluegrass, a common lawn grass in Ontario, spreads by underground stems called rhizomes. Without a clear line it moves a little further into a mulched bed every season.

The interlock gives you a line to trim against instead of recutting the edge by hand. The mulch then covers the bare soil inside it. The Morton Arboretum explains that mulch keeps sun off the soil, which cuts moisture loss, and reduces competition from weeds.

Our garden beds, planting and mulching page covers the bed side of this kind of work.

How do you look after new sod, edging and mulch?

Water every day at first, keep off the lawn while it roots, and top up the mulch once a year. Here’s the schedule:

Scroll sideways to see the whole table.

Our guide on how often to water new sod has the full week-by-week schedule. The mulch guide shows how much to order for a bed this size.

Keep mulch pulled away from tree trunks. The Morton Arboretum’s advice is to leave a “donut hole” around the trunk and never pile mulch against the bark.

Pull weeds in the beds while they’re small, before they seed. Our guide to low-maintenance garden beds covers how to keep that work down.

Want a yard like this?

If your yard looks like the before photo, we can quote the sod installation, the border and the beds together. We work across Markham and nearby, including Richmond Hill and Stouffville.

Text a picture to (437) 684-2535 or use the form below for a free quote.