Backyards
Front Yards
Common Lawn Terms
Learn the lingo for lawn installation
Sod: Turf grass and a portion of soil beneath it held together with roots and often a piece of plastic netting.
Knit: Newly installed sod lawns need to "knit" with the soil. Roots begin to grow and lock into the soil making it difficult to pull up by hand. It takes two to three weeks for roots to knit with soil.
Roller: After new sod is placed, the turf is irrigated until fully saturated, then a weighted lawn roller is moved back and forth across the graded lawn to smooth out the seams and improve the speed of knitting. The process is similar to using a rolling pin to flatten cookie or pie crust dough.
Rototiller: A motorized rotary cultivator with spinning blades perpendicular to the ground. Used to break up, mix and amend soils as part of the preparation of soil for plant beds and lawns.
Stolon: Warm-season lawns are "stoloniferous" and can be propagated from cuttings. Some hybrid varieties don't produce viable seed at all and can only be propagated from stolons. Sod farms sell stolons, basically chewed up pieces of sod that have been washed and ready to plant into a prepared bed.
