This is the before photo. Before we did the sod, we had to prepare. While I was digging a French drain for the runoff from the downspout (behind the corner of the solarium at left), Freda was raking up rocks from the yard. Those large rocks laid in a line there were ones that I dug up in the process of creating the French Drain. BTW, the French Drain has nothing to do with the French, it is named after a man named French who invented it.
After I was finished with the French Drain, I helped Freda rake up the rocks from the back yard. We had a lot of rocks in the topsoil because it was unscreened - unscreened topsoil is the gift that keeps on giving (wry smile). We decided to get sod instead of grass seed since the soil itself isn't very good. After we raked up five full wheelbarrow loads of rocks, we spread out sphagnum moss (peat moss) and then spread bone meal (natural fertilizer) on top of that.
This photo was taken on Sunday. We had a number of friends help us with laying the sod. The sod was supposed to be delivered around 1pm. I called around 1pm and the office said it would be a bit later - say 3pm. I called at 2:55pm and was told that they hadn't cut sod the previous day or night because it was so warm, so the sod would be another 2-3 hrs later. It eventually arrived at 7pm. Because of the delays, we had to keep calling our friends who were going to help us lay the sod to let them know about the delay.
You may notice that we only got about the first 20 feet of the yard sodded. This is because (a) sod is quite expensive and (b) we knew we wouldn't be able to prepare more of the yard even if we could have afforded more sod!
Of course, we have been watering the sod regularly to keep it green & protect our investment in it.
