Planting Grass

 Now that spring is here, you may want to consider planting grass to spruce up your lawn.  The winter often shows where your lawn needs the most help, and the wet weather of spring can be a big help.  By the way, fall is also a good time to plant.

The two primary ways of planting new grass in a lawn is:

1. Laying Sod
2. Planting Grass Seed

In both cases, you'll want to prepare the land.  It's good to have tilled and graded land (churned up and smoothed out) to get ready for planting.  You'll want to remove plants, roots and rocks.  Once you've prepared your area, you'll want to decide which way you're going: seeding or laying sod.  

Sod is quick, much less work and looks great.  But it's also much more expensive.  Sod can cost as much as 50 cents for a square foot of sod. That can add up.  Where a 50 pound bag of Kentucky Blue grass seed may only cost $120, but it will also plant over 16,750 square feet.    HOW BIG IS YOUR YARD?Rectangular YardFour Sided (irregular) YardTriangular AreaThat's the difference between $120 in seed and $4,000 to $8,000 in sod, but again, someone else has done a lot of work, and with sod you almost instantly have a lawn.

Another important consideration is the type of grass.  This, in part, dictates how much grass seed you'll need.  Furthermore, some types of grass are not well suited for different climates.  What might do well in the Pacific North West may not survive at all in a dry climate.   The Types of Grass graphic shows some guidance of the types of grasses that are common in different regions.

Note 1: This vCalc web page has numerous embedded calculators to make it easy to compute the numbers you'll need on your project.  Every place you see CLICK HERE, a pop-up calculator is ready to help you.  Click on these, and enter your measurements.  You'll find that they are a great help.

Note 2: This article and its calculators are for planting grass in a lawn and not for grass planted in a pasture.   Lawns are planted much more densely, in some cases 17x as much seed.  To compute the amount of seed needed for a pasture, CLICK HERE. Thanks to our new friend Sarah K. for asking about pastures.

How big is your Yard?

First things first.  Before you can even start to estimate the amount of products you'll need, you should know the size of the area you're planting.  The following list has pop-up calculators to help you make the calculations.  In each case, you'll need to make some measurements outside with tape measurer.

• To compute the area of a four sided area with roughly square corners, CLICK HERE.
• To compute the area of a four sided garden without square corners, CLICK HERE. 
• To compute the area of a garden with three sides, CLICK HERE

How much Product to Buy

But, whether you are laying sod or planting seed, you'll need to know how much you need to buy.  The Planting Grass Calculator in this page will help you answer "How Much" questions as follows:

• Grass Seed (Area) - CLICK HERE:  This computes the amount of grass seed needed in pound needed to plant an area (A).  It let's the user enter the area in different units (e.g. square feet, yards or meters or acres), and select a type of grass.  These types include: Bahai, Bermuda, Centipede, Bluegrass, Kentucky 31, Rye-grass, Shade Mix, St.Augustine, Sun and Shade Mix, Tall Fescue, Zoysia.
  
• Seed Needed (LxW) - CLICK HERE:  This computes the amount of seed needed in pounds to plant a rectangular area.  It lets the user define the area by a length and a width and pick the type of grass being planted.  These types include: Bahai, Bermuda, Centipede, Bluegrass, Kentucky 31, Rye-grass, Shade Mix, St.Augustine, Sun and Shade Mix, Tall Fescue, Zoysia. GRASS by SEED   Before: Under Straw    After: New Grass
• Seed Needed (Irregular Area) - CLICK HERE: This computes the amount of seed needed in pounds to plant an irregular four-sided area.  It let's the user define the area by the length of the four sides (a,b,c,d) and a diagonal (D) and pick the type of grass being planted.  These types include: Bahai, Bermuda, Centipede, Bluegrass, Kentucky 31, Rye-grass, Shade Mix, St.Augustine, Sun and Shade Mix, Tall Fescue, Zoysia.
• New Sod (grass) - CLICK HERE:  This computes the number of standard pieces or pallets of sod needed to cover a rectangular area.  Sod typically comes in 16"x24" pieces on a 50 square yard pallet or in 12x40 or 18x60 inch rolls.  This lets the user enter the area by a length and a width and then choose which size sod piece or pallet.  It returns the amount of sod needed.
• New Sod (grass - irregular area) - CLICK HERE:  This computes the number of standard pieces or pallets of sod needed to cover a rectangular area.  Sod typically comes in 16"x24" pieces on a 50 square yard pallet or in 12x40 or 18x60 inch rolls.  It let's the user define the area by the length of the four sides (a,b,c,d) and a diagonal (D) and and then choose which size sod piece or pallet.  It returns the amount of sod needed.
• Bales of Straw Needed for Ground Cover - CLICK HERE:  This computes the number of square bales needed to cover a rectangular area.
• Bales of Straw Needed for Ground Cover of an Irregular Field - CLICK HERE:  This computes the number of square bales needed for an irregular four sided field.

Once you've planted your grass, send us a pictures and tell us how it went.