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Lavery’s Sod Farm provides quality sod to the retail and wholesale markets. We offer pick-up and delivery, as well as installation. Please call for sod prices or to schedule jobsite estimates. Lead time for estimates and installations varies throughout the year, with spring and fall being our busiest times.
With respect to sod order timing, more notice is always better, especially for scheduling deliveries. However, if you get a job at the last minute or get a job ready earlier than planned, please don’t hesitate to call, as often we can work more deliveries into our schedule. We ask that pick-up orders are scheduled at least one day before pick-up. We do not always have the capacity to cut sod when customers arrive without calling ahead. The best plan for last-minute pick-up orders is to call as EARLY in the day as possible.
Weather is always a factor. In cool times of year (late fall, winter, and early spring) sod can be cut the day before it is used. Because we aim not to waste sod, we try to keep track of the forecast, and stay in touch with customers who have ordered sod around the time of a rain event. In the cool times of year, we may ask you if you need your sod “rain or shine,” in the event we can harvest the sod on the day before the order, but it is forecasted to rain the day of the order and enough rain falls to preclude cutting sod that day.
We have the capability to remove existing turf at your jobsite. We refer to our manual (walk-behind) sod harvester as “the jitterbug.” For renovation projects where there is no need for grade changes, jitterbugging is an effective way to remove unwanted turf without removing significant amounts of topsoil.
For larger projects, such as sports field or golf course renovations, we can also bring a larger sod harvester to remove existing turf. Lavery’s has performed sod removal at sports fields and golf courses where the customer wanted to re-use the turf we were removing. Depending on the time of year and how well the existing turf holds together when it is harvested, recycling of existing turf is a possibility. An example of this type of project was the renovation of the River Course of Virginia Tech in Radford, Virginia. Their goal was to re-work several fairways that were already established in bentgrass. The bulk of the project took place in the fall/winter of the year, when harvested sod has an increased longevity due to cooler temperatures. Lavery’s was hired to harvest the bentgrass fairways. The fairways were re-graded/re-worked, and the bentgrass sod was re-installed. The majority of the bentgrass harvested was successfully re-planted over the course of the renovation project. When temperatures started to warm up, the golf course rented climate controlled semi-trailers to store harvested bentgrass while they re-worked the fairway(s) before re-installing the turf. Time-of-year is an important consideration when planning projects with the intention of re-using the turf that you hire us to harvest for you.
Rolling installed sod is a good way to insure that the rootpad is in complete contact with the soil below (allowing the roots to locate water and nutrients). Lavery’s includes rolling as part of every installation. The main obstacle to rolling installed turf is slope. If sod is installed on a steep slope, the sod is stapled to hold it in place until it roots. It can be counter-productive to roll sod installed on a slope if it causes the sod pieces to shift from their original location. More importantly, depending on the steepness of the slope, it can be dangerous to operate the roller in that vicinity. Our crews have experience operating the roller and will roll all areas of a sod installation that are safe to roll.
Because many renovation projects involve the removal of unwanted grasses, such as Bermuda grass (wiregrass), Lavery’s would prefer not to haul scrap from a jobsite back to the sod farm. When possible, we attempt to relocate scrap to a site nearby (in an adjacent woods, for example). If there is nowhere to dump the undesirable vegetation removed at the jobsite, Lavery’s may need to charge a dump-fee if we are needed to haul the scrap to a landfill location.
If your goal is to rid your yard of Bermuda grass, be aware that it is difficult to kill. We recommend that you spray Bermuda grass multiple times in the heat of the summer to kill the Bermuda and decrease the chance of its return after the new sod is installed. After several treatments with glysophate, look for any green color remaining in the plant or for sap in the stem. If you see any green color or notice fluid in the plant tissue, the Bermuda is not dead yet. When all of the Bermuda is brown and dry, you can proceed to physically removing the dead grass and preparing the yard for sod. If your yard is continuous with another yard that has Bermuda, it’s likely that it will spread back into your renovated yard over time, unless the neighbors kill and remove their Bermuda grass as well.
