Winter is Coming! Is it too late to sod?
You have probably heard us say something along the lines of "fall being the best time to sod”. Here’s an insider-trader secret: LATE fall/early winter is a downright BLISSFUL time of year to sod.
The short answer is: You can lay sod any time we can cut sod. Typically, we can reliably cut sod in Eastern Iowa from the beginning of March until the beginning of December. That said, sometimes Mother Nature does crazy things like give us 50-degree days in January that cause us to be able to get our blades in the ground just enough to cut for customers. Fun Fact: We have cut sod in every month of the year over our 51 years in business!
The main advantage of late fall/early winter (in Iowa this means late October - early December most years) is with your water bill. During this window of time we typically have cold temperatures overnight and milder temps during the day. Lower temps mean that water simply doesn’t evaporate at nearly the rate that it does on a 100+ degree day in July. This means that in some cases a single watering on the day of installation may be sufficient to hold the area through the entire winter (assuming there is snowfall).
In the spring, the snow melts and waters the new sod for you for a couple of weeks. It’s wildly convenient.
Another advantage to sodding late in the year, rather than trying to spring seed is that a sodded area can be treated with a weed preemergent in the spring to eliminate weed pressure during the season. If you wait until spring to seed you will not be able to effectively control weeds for the majority of the growing season, which can be frustrating for people.
Another fun fact: This is what we look like when we go out to cut sod in February.
Keep in mind during the first full growing season that it is very, VERY important to still treat a new lawn like a juvenile lawn, and not like how you might have treated your older existing lawn. Be intentional about giving it routine feedings with 13-13-13 starter fertilizer and helping it out with watering in times of extreme heat or drought in the coming summer months.
Happy projects!