What are the Pros and Cons of Sod?

About nine months ago, we moved into a home that had not been taken care of well. The yard was completely dirt, and dust flew up when anyone walked on it. It was full of goat heads, dandelions, cigarette butts, and broken glass. I was discouraged and wondered how to make our tiny homes a beautiful, safe place to live. When the fall came, we quickly laid down some grass seeds and watered them faithfully, hoping that our yard would be green and beautiful by spring. Around the beginning of March, I searched on Facebook marketplace, and someone posted that they had some free sod that they didn't want. I quickly messaged them, and we laid down all of that sod. This happened three or four more times in the following weeks. What are the pros and cons of laying down sod?

Pros of Laying  Sod

1. Nothing beats lying in soft grass! The day you start laying down sod, your yard might be 100% dirt. By evening you have a beautiful green lawn.
2. You don’t have to worry about what has happened to the yard beforehand. As we laid down sod, we covered layers of broken glass and bad memories. Now our kids can run barefoot in the grass without us worrying that they will step on old beer bottles that have been shattered. They are now buried for good! Yay!
3. Sod is laid down without patches. You don’t need to worry about your lawn coming in slowly and feeling it in. Instead, you quickly lay it down, and it’s there. You don’t even have to worry about seeding the bare spots because there aren’t any.
4. You see the difference immediately. Patience is a virtue, but with sod, the fantastic green carpet is laid down, and suddenly, your yard becomes a beautiful oasis.
5. Do you have rocks where you don’t want the grass to be? You lay sod down where you want it. It is easy to accidentally overlap the grass area with the Rock area when seeding. Next spring, you will have a bunch of weeding. What should be rock the grass is taken over. With sod, you choose where it goes.
6. You can rip sod easily to shape in a yard. Do you have a random half-circle flower garden? That is not a big deal with sod. You can easily rip and fill in the gaps, and it still looks terrific.

Cons of laying sod

1. Unless you pay someone to do it for you laying sod is a lot of work! I have had multiple evenings where I have been up until 10:30 or 11, laying sod by a flashlight. My arms hurt, my back hurts, my wrist hurt, and the only thing that keeps me going is the excitement of having a yard.
2. We quickly realized that every line between the sod would be replaced with dandelions. The line between each role can soon fill with weeds. It was a little depressing but easily managed with the dandelion killer.
3. Sod raises your yard an inch or two. Because we were only getting sod every couple of weeks, our yard looked super funky. It was hard to mow and could easily be tripped on. I didn’t realize how much higher our yard would be because of the sod.
4. If you buy sod, it is super expensive. I often talked to my husband about buying sod, but we knew we couldn’t afford it after looking at prices. So we decided we would go the cheaper route and seed our yard. I was so grateful that many people pulled up some of their yards for larger play-land areas and gardens.
5. The first few weeks after laying sod, your yard looks like an unkept mess. You have to wait a couple of weeks before mowing the sod. Trust me when I say to wait. I tried to trim it too early, and some of the sod came up and got chewed up by the lawnmower. Oops, my bad. 
6. Lots of watering can be expensive! If you have secondary water, it isn’t a big deal. It takes a lot of water for the sod to start taking root. But with house water, it gets pricey when you have to deep water your yard repeatedly.
7. You aren’t supposed to walk on the sod after laying it. Again it goes to the point where you want to have the sod with the best chance of surviving. If you run all over the grass, it will take longer to take off and become healthy. This was hard for my kids and me because we were so excited to have it.
8. A lot of people lay down too much sod. In talking to the people, we picked up sod from. It was interesting to hear that most of them had become overzealous when they first laid down their lawn. They quickly realized they did not want as much grass as they had initially put down. 

"Our goal is to help the world make decisions with a list of Pros and Cons. We invite all to add to our lists to help others make the most educated decision possible. We are all in this world together to help each other and learn from what others have learned from their lives journey." 

- Pros and Cons Team

Written By: Sarah