Kind of hard to tell from the pictures what kind of grass it is other than I am certain it is a warm season grass most likely Bermuda. Everything looks normal for the moment. You really need to find out what kind of grass it is before I can tell you what exactly to do. Can you take a good close up like a foot just above the grass? Since it is new sod, I would not use a pre-emrgence this spring and just live with the weeds for now. But basically once it greens up, you will need to start your yearly fertilizer program. Until we find out what kind of grass its, not much else to tell you.

Lilman I looked over your photos, not uncommon what you are experiencing, not is it as bad as you think. What you see is somewhat normal. The tan or dormant grass is drought dormancy, meaning the grass has gone dormant to protect itself from being too dry. It is too dry because it has no roots to speak of to pull water up from the sub soil, and because you have not been keeping it watered enough for the local conditions. If it has been rather warm and windy will suk the moisture right out of the sod even though you have been watering lightly twice a day. Up the water as it is almost impossible to over water new Bermuda sod. You may have to water lightly 4 to 6 times a day. What I suggest is give it a good thorough soaking asap so as to make the ground a bit on the soggy side, then water enough each day to keep the sod good and moist without any standing water. Then when it greens up apply a good balanced fertilizer like 15-10-5 or even some ole fashion 10-20-10 to accelerate root development and start weening off the water. Just be patient and it will be nice thick and green in a couple short weeks. As long as the grass is tan or straw colored you still have live grass. Black or grey is dead.

Agree. I'm 99.9999999999% sure you have Tif 419. It is the most affordable turf in the industry and is used by contractors and landscapers all over the South. I'd change the watering to 10 minutes. About all you have to do is keep the top inch cool - not saturated by any means. Once the sod has knit into the soil below, you're off to the races. Don't judge anything until you have that accomplished, you start backing way off on water, and get some fertilizer down. Eventually you'll be watering about an inch all at one time. Measure that with cat food or tuna cans to find out how long it takes your sprinkler system to put out that much water. Some do it in 20 minutes and some take 8 hours. You need to know that. In the cool months you'll only need to water once a month. In the warm months you'll be watering weekly. Drop your mower one notch every week and mow it every other day. After a week drop it one more notch. You will scalp just a little off each time. Bermuda grows blades out from stems. When you mow down below the stems, it looks scalped. But it IS bermuda. It comes right back. By the time you get to the bottom notch, it will have cooled off enough that the lowest setting is the one to keep. If you want it to look much nicer, get a reel type mower and set that down to 1/2 inch. At that point it no longer grows stemmy. It takes on a completely different growth habit called prostrate. At that point it becomes the coolest carpet of grass ever. Picture a putting green. I would wait to fertilize with chemicals until you have the grass mowed down all the way. Why? No real reason other than to give it that extra time to knit into the soil. In the mean time you can use organic fertilizer. Which ever one you choose, start at about 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Then in a month you can up that to 20 pounds and then up to 30 or more if you like and can afford it. Bermuda can take 50 pounds per month if you can do that. Most people opt for chemical fertilizers to simplify the fertilizing.

I did roll the sod after laying it. That's good for the sod, but if you were thinking that would help with the leveling, it's still going to settle for 3 years. I see the low spot fairly well. When you fill that with sand, if you want a faster recovery, be sure to use a broom or rake to lift the grass blades up through the sand. I've seen hybrid bermuda lawns smothered and not recover for 2 years after covering with ... compost! Nobody would predict that, but it was right around the corner from me. They've since converted to St Augustine. Dry edges on a roll of sod is not unusual. It will recover.