Originally Posted by Bob F

bairdyboy wrote:
Hi all!

First post so be gentle...

I have an area of 65m2 that i paid a gardener to lay turf. It needed
level quite abit so i thought i would pay a professional to do it. Got
some "premier turf". It cost £300 all in.

So anyway, after he laid it... i walked over the lawn to inspect it
and it had loads of lumps and bumps. It just didn't seem level. I
asked him about this and he just mumbled something about new turf
doing that and it was ok.

That night i walked over the turf for once last time to inspect the
bumps again. I lifted one roll of turf and it had a big rock
underneath it!! I havnt walked on it since to make sure it roots down
ok.

So a week down the line and there are in places 2 inch gaps between
some of the turf rolls and some "dead" patches too.

I have been watering twice a day everyday. I also put lawn feed down
to help the process.

I complained to the gardener and he said i couldn't have been watering
it correctly!! He said he will come back in a week to look at it.

So my questions are-

1. When turf is freshly laid would you expect when you walk on it for
it to have lumps and bumps every so often?

I wouldn't walk on it until it's had some time to build up roots. Big rocks
should have been buried before laying the sod, IMHO.


2. How can he level it now that most of the turf has rooted down??

With a roller? Did he roll it before installing the sod? In my experience, you
need to roll, then rake, then roll and rake..... until the soil is level and
firm.

Watering so much will not help at all to develop deep roots. They will all grow
near the surface. Feeding this early is probably a problem also. A starter
fertilizer mixed into the soil before the sod was layed would be the most I
would do.

What opinions did you get from his references before the job?