Sod Installation in The Woodlands and Conroe, TX

Installed sod runs $1.50 to $3.00 per square foot including soil preparation, sod and labor. St. Augustine is $1.75–$2.50, Bermuda $1.50–$2.25, and Zoysia $2.00–$3.00. A typical 5,000 square foot lawn costs $8,000 to $12,000 fully installed. Sod supplied without installation is $0.45–$0.75 per square foot — the gap is preparation and labor, which is also where the result comes from.

It depends almost entirely on light. Most Woodlands lots are shaded by mature pines and oaks, and St. Augustine is the only common warm-season grass with real shade tolerance — Palmetto for more sun, Raleigh for more cold. On an open sunny lot, Bermuda Tifway 419 is tougher, finer and cheaper. Zoysia sits in between: dense, low-mow, moderately shade tolerant, and the most expensive.

Spring through early fall, with April to June and September to October the two best windows. Warm-season grasses need soil warmth to root, so they establish quickly then. Midsummer installation works but the watering demand is high and unforgiving. Winter sod will survive dormant but will not knit in until spring, so you carry the risk through several months for no benefit.

Light foot traffic after about two weeks, normal use after three to four. The test is whether the sod resists a gentle tug: if it lifts, the roots have not knitted into the soil beneath. Keep pets and children off it in the first two weeks, because the seams shift before rooting and the gaps do not close on their own.

A great deal, and the schedule matters more than the total. Water heavily immediately after laying so the soil beneath is wet, not just the turf. Then water daily — often twice daily in summer heat — for the first two weeks, enough to keep the soil under the sod moist. Taper to every other day in week three, then two or three times a week. Almost every failed lawn we are called to was under-watered in the first two weeks.

Yes, always. Laying new sod over living grass is the fastest way to lose the job: Bermuda in particular will push straight up through St. Augustine and you end up with a patchwork within a season. We kill or strip the existing growth, then till to break the compacted layer beneath it — which is a step that only exists because the old turf came out first.

No, and it will hide one temporarily, which is worse. If water pools in your lawn the cause is grade or compaction, and fresh turf laid over it will thin out in the wet areas within a season. The right sequence is to correct the grade and add drainage first, then sod. Installing sod is actually the cheapest moment to fix a grade, because the ground is already open.

Not immediately. A starter fertilizer worked into the prepared soil before laying is worth doing, and we include it. After that, leave it alone for about six weeks — the sod arrives already fed, and pushing top growth before the roots are established works against you. First proper feed at around six to eight weeks, then onto a normal program.

Not reliably. St. Augustine is the most shade-tolerant common option here and it still needs roughly four hours of direct or well-filtered sun. Under dense pine canopy with less than that, no turf will hold, and repeated sodding is money spent annually. The honest alternatives are thinning the canopy to let light through, or a shade planting bed with groundcover and mulch instead of grass.

A typical residential lawn is two to three days: one to two for killing, stripping, tilling, amending and grading, and one for laying, cutting in and rolling. Preparation is the bulk of it, which is the reverse of what most people expect. Larger properties and lots needing significant grade correction take longer, and we will give you the actual days at the quote rather than a vague window.

Wait until the sod resists a gentle tug, usually two to three weeks. Mowing before the roots knit pulls the seams open and undoes the establishment watering. Set the deck high for the first cut, take no more than a third of the blade, and keep the mower off the lawn entirely while the ground underneath is still saturated.