WAIT A MINUTE. Okay y'all, if you think you have an addition question that will help you improve your lawn PLEASE start a new topic if you have ANY question related to new sod. dreabird I would love to interact with you on your issue, but I'm holding back. Here's why... jberger went the wrong direction and while he did get good advice, it did not go far enough or get the normal attention his question deserved simply because this was not his topic. I am not the forum police or even the moderator. I happen to be a moderator on other lawn forums, and have had to deal with this issue. I am just trying to get the best information out to the people who need it. Tacking questions on to other people's topics is not the best way to do that. J GIL, good advice, but you're only encouraging them. This topic should have died 5 years ago.

Whoa, hold on a second. The advice of seeding a Bolero Plus lawn isn't exactly great. Here's how I would handle this situation. First of all, are you on a sprinkler system? If not, I would seriously consider a system if you're wanting to keep a lawn in any kind of consistent shape. They're actually not that difficult to install yourself. Second, do you want it to remain Bolero Plus? If you do then I would strongly suggest NOT seeding it. The problem with seeding is that Bolero Plus has the potential of a 6 foot root system whereas any seed you buy at a local store is usually never going to get to 1 foot little long 6 so you will always have grasses competing against one another. If you want to remain Bolero Plus, I have a feeling that the problem you had initially lies in your soil preparation. If you planted your sod right on top of good old San Jose soil then you essentially planted it in clay. I live in San Jose and have had to learn about the soil the hard way. If you run a ph test on the soil, it looks great, in fact it's fantastic but the fact remains, it's still clay. If you planted just in San Jose soil then you might as well rip up the entire mess because you will be fighting it forever. There will be constant brown spotting and all sorts of growing pains. So I would suggest doing some soil removal if you have to because in this soil, you want amendment at about 70/30, meaning 70% amendment and 30% regular soil. It might seem high but go out and dig down about 6 inches and grab out enough soil to form a ball about the size of a baseball. Check out the consistency and you'll see what I'm talking about. If you rub your finger over the ball does it seem like the soil breaks loose easily? I bet it doesn't. That's NOT what you want to plant sod into. So I suggest no less and 18 inches of amended soil. Also add in a good lawn fertilizer as your mixing in the amendment. Try to save enough prior to finishing to add another inch or two on the top because you want to tamp down this stuff, just a little, don't want it compacted but you want some of the air out of it too. That's what you'll use the 1 or 2 inches of left over for, to recover what you tamp down. Now, when you lay the sod, have a very large bucket or something that you can place the entire roll of sod into. Fill it with water and sink the sod into it so that the water covers it completely. You'll see the air bubbles finally stop once it's soaked through. Don't be afraid to be a little rough on the soil side of the sod because the dirt that holds it together isn't always the best stuff to plant with. (Repost possibly?) Roll it out, tamp it down lightly. If the roll is moving around then you need to figure out a way to move it around until it stops moving. After you roll it all out, don't be afraid to water it, in fact a good soaking won't hurt at all. You also need to water it every day for about two weeks. I water my grass every day but it's simple because everything is electronic and I don't usually waste water. Good luck!

Most likely brown patch since your sod is mostly tall fescue. When you lay sod in the summer, especially TF, you have a catch 22 situation in that you have to water it often to keep it alive and allow it to root, but at the same time constant leaf wetness often leads to brown patch in hot weather. Unfortunately most "landscapers" don't consider this, and it could have been prevented with an application of fungicide after the sod was laid. Brown patch affected lawns often come back in the fall, unless the disease affects the crowns, then you can lose grass. 90/10 usually means you have some KBG mixed in with your TF, in which case the KBG will spread to fill in bare areas over time.

I have a very similar situation to the person who posted the pics. I bought a house that had laid sod six months prior and it was on its way out by the time I had moved in. For a quick fix I resodded the same area with Marathon sod myself. Prior to sodding I did all the necessary preparations: -remove old sod and applied roundup -rototilled existing soil -applied soil amendment and top soil to level and prepare soil for new sod -upon application the new sod rolled properly and got a good soaking -new sod was watered twice a day for the first two weeks (am waterings only) - the grass was not mowed until the end of the second week It's been about three weeks now and the grass just doesn't look healthy. The sod has brownish patches in which the grass appears to be drying out however the sod feels moist. Other areas of the grass are constantly flat and appear blueish-gray. I have a small back yard (30' by 12') and it has heavy shade from large trees. Could this be a fungus? I have pets so I'd lean towards an organic solution for this. Any recommendations?