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How many weeds are accetable in new sod?

13 years ago

We had a landscaper lay some Bermuda sod in our backyard about 2 weeks ago. The Bermuda is starting to turn green, maybe 1/4 of the lawn is green but there are also alot of weeds. Not coming up from between the squares but in the actual sod.

There seem to be two main weeds but the one I am concerned about is Annual Bluegrass. on average 1 out of every 3 squares has at least one bluegrass weed. Some squares have as many as 3.

Is this acceptable in new sod?

Or is this expected to have this many weeds and just something I need to deal with myself?

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Comments (3)

nearandwest
13 years ago
No! This is not acceptable. When you purchase sod it should be clean and weed-free. However, unless you have a written contract with the landscaper, there is probably not much you can do. You can ask the landscaper to come back and manually remove the poa annua, but without a contract the landscaper is not obligated to return.

Fortunately, in the next 6 weeks, the heat should start to reduce the poa population in your sod. Then in late summer, you'll want to start dealing with controlling poa annua.
windmiller
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks for the info! Much appreciated, I have contacted him and we'll see what he says.
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Yeah, I'm having the same issues with my sod that was put down at the end of march. The bermuda is doing fairly well, nice and green, but there are places in the back that has some type of thick blade grass/weed coming up in spots. Those spots have alot of that grass/weed. I'm hoping that the bermuda will take over. I'm going to lay off the watering to about 1 time a week and see how it reacts. I'll spot water alittle inbetween where some of sod wasn't taking, hopefully it'll help the bermuda spread into the semi-dead pieces. I've mowed it about 3 or 4 times already. I have a toro 20055 mower and the lowest it'll go is 1 1/4" which is about the lowest I can probably go on my terrian. Not that sod is uneven, just that I got banks and hills, and I don't think a reel mower will do well. Will keeping it at around 1 1/4" be enough to choke out the weeds?
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That's getting a bit low for any real nitrogen uptake. It would do no harm to apply a "wineterizer" type fertilizer. Uncoated, fast release, a high percentage of WSN-water soluable nitrogen, but likely not much benefit. You have been given good advice on lime. You want calcitic lime not dolomitic. If you get pulverized or crushed, you want the highest mesh number you can get and as close to 100 calcium carbonate equivalent as you can find. If pulverized, you will want to use a drop spreader rather than a broadcast spreader. Some unsolicited advice: You do want to get the pH up into the 6s, but 5.9 isn't a major problem by any means. Your potassium on the otherhand is quite low. I'd give potassium priority this fall. It plays a major roll in root health and growth and putting it down now will give it time to move down into the soil and for the salts to wash out before next spring. Potassium and lime should not be applied at the same time. There should be 3-4 weeks between adding them if you decide to do both. You want to find 0-0-50- potassium sulfate SOP. Avoid muriate of potash 0-0-60.
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auteck
13 years ago
Where in NC are you located?

Bermuda is not a good choice for a residential lawn, specially in NC. It does best as a sports turf where it gets the professional treatment it needs in order to grow dense, green, and weed-free.

Bermuda becomes very thin during the dormant period in late Fall, all of winter, and half of Spring, allowing weed seeds to easily germinate and take over the area until warm weather returns.

POA Annua can be controlled in the early Fall with an application of pre-emergent herbicide like Dimension.

Surflan works very well at keeping POA Annua and many broaleaf winter weeds from ever germinating in your lawn, but your best defence against weeds is a very dense turf canopy.

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