Nice job Mate!

WOW! First thing to say is how refreshing it is to see someone present a well illustrated and well written description of a method that we've not seen in these forums in the 12 years since I've been here. Sprigging is mentioned in academia and then only for use in professional settings like sports fields. I've never actually heard of it being done and certainly not by a homeowner. Sprigging has a real advantage over sod because there is no soil to deal with. With sod the growers try to maintain 1/2 to 3/4 inch depth on their sod cutter. Variations like that can lead to a bumpy lawn afterward. With sprigging the soil is prepped and perfected (like always) but then the sprigs are dropped without additional soil (except for topdressing). What SimonR has done is, instead of dumping the topdressing on the ground and spreading it, is to scatter it lightly using a broadcast spreader. This solves a big problem for the homeowner trying this approach. One disadvantage of sprigging is time. Once the sprigs are cut, they are alive and subject to drying out. They need to get back into the ground quickly for this to work.

I have questions!!

First I need to get oriented. If you're standing under your patio shade looking out at the pathway, you are facing south...is that correct? Your long shadows face south in the southern hemisphere, right? I'm asking as much for me as other readers from "up here."

Also, quick lesson in lawn photography:
As much as possible, take your photos on a cloudy day or under the shade of a building or tree. The contrast of full sun makes it much harder to see the important parts of the turf.

In the preparation part when you said, cultivation, what did you mean by that? And how did you screed such a large area? I think we might have slightly different ideas about the meaning of screed, maybe.

As you mentioned, sprigs are most easily acquired from raking up after someone verticuts their bermuda sod. It sounds like you bought a few pieces of sod and created sprigs from the sod. That is fairly genius by our standards. That is also the "trick" which makes this method accessible to the homeowner. Do y'all do that a lot in Oz? How many square meters of sod did you buy and what is the area covered? When you tried cutting the sprigs by hand, what tools did you use? Around my area in South Texas, machetes are used to chop sod into shape up against objects. Would a machete work for chopping bermuda sod into sprigs?

What month did you do this?

What does a disc roller look like?

If you were to do it again, what would you do the same and what would you change?

The last person to show us something new on this forum was David Proud with his methods for leveling a bumpy lawn without completely renovating the yard. His approach has become standard for the homeowner to solving the bumpy lawn problem. I believe your sprigging method is another one of those ideas which could become a "new" approach to having a very inexpensive, hybrid bermuda lawn. Thank you so much for sharing.

Hi dchall_san_antonio, thanks for the follow-up post.

You are spot on with regards to the unevenness of sod. I did my front yard last season and was instantly dissatisfied with the results with regard to the undulations. So I had to spend more time and more effort to get a result that I wanted from the outset. Hence my obsession was born with having a perfectly level yard. I searched the internet determined to get a better result. I read about sprigging, but found almost zero info on how the regular Joe could do it at home. I took bits of info from golf green construction, sport fields, bowling greens and then applied this to what would work at home for me using everyday tools and non-specialized products. The cost was also significantly less than buying sod for the entire project which is quite expensive in Australia (around A$9.00m2)

I will try by best to answer the questions that you have put forth;

My patio area faces roughly east, so the sun passes directly over the yard in summer. In winter it moves to the north (the left hand side looking from patio). Long shadows do cast to the south, however more so in winter as the sun is lower in sky.

I cultivated the soil using a rotary hoe or a gas powered tiller to till the soil to a depth of around 6 inches. I then made a contraption of 4 x 6 foot pieces of timber set parallel with 4 x braces running perpendicular to the long pieces. I attached a rope to this and then spent the next few days dragging this contraption back and forth, round and round, up and down until it was as level as I could make it. I let it settle for about 2 weeks, then spent another weekend with my new wooden friend.

I got the idea from this video;
Leveling yard

After this I brought in around 2 cubic meters of builders sand for final grade. I built a smaller version of the wood , this time using aluminum and a handle that you use like a rake to move the soil around. I then watered this to the point of runoff and let it dry. I used the lawn level again to level out any minor undulations and watered it again. Finally I used a long piece of timber to check for grade and undulations. At this point I was satisfied.

The high tech tools used to cut up the sod was a pair of garden shears and a pair of HD sissors! No wonder my hands were dead after about 6 hours. I put the cut sprigs into a big container of water for about an hour, then put them in a old wet sheet in the shade until I was ready to broadcast them. I made sure I had enough to cover one irrigation zone before I spread them such that i could irrigate immediately after planting.
Once I realised that this method was not going to work I borrowed a leaf shredder and put smaller pieces of sod through the hopper. At first I was concerned that I cut them too small and they would not root, but they did take, however at a slower rate than compared with the larger pieces.

I did this in October, which is mid-spring here. Funnily enough we had a really mild spring which didn't really help with the grow-in. When temps got above 25C you could literally watch it grow!

This is not common practise for establishing home lawns in Australia. Some turf suppliers do offer what they call 'shredded turf' but these companies are not in my state. The methods these companies advocate could not be translated the method I used.

Next time I would try and actually source the sprigs, rather than cutting up sod. It is so time consuming and very messy. Other than that I am really happy with how it has come up. I said to my wifey that if I ever plant another lawn I will be stolonizing it.

The real reason I wanted to spend the time doing this post is purely for the fact that I have learned so much from this forum (even as a lurker) and I wanted to take the time and give something back to other forum members who have taken the time with their experiences. In particular David's thread which I used to level my front yard. Here are some pics of that project if anyone is interested;

Front

This is disc roller below;

PS I will work on my photography skills

This post was edited by SimonR on Mon, Jan 27, 14 at 0:35

Having trouble adding a link, so here is the lawn level I made.

Again, I have never seen anyone try to sprig a bermuda lawn. You absolutely demonstrate the ability to apply a little elbow grease and do it at home. Thank you for your tenacity in wanting to get a more perfect result. You have overcome some serious hurdles for the average guy on the street.

Now my fear is that your efforts will be set back by rototilling. For several years we (I am a moderator on some other forums) have been advocating not using a rototiller to prep for a lawn. The reason is that a human cannot hold a rototoller steady at, say, 4 inches deep. You will hit a root, rock, or piece of pipe or something that causes the machine to buck out of the ground. Then you'll hit a soft spot where the machine digs in deeper than 4 inches. The only way to rototill and hold it steady is with a tractor mounted tiller. Most homeowners don't have access to one of those. Your problem will comes long after the tilling is done. You leveled the surface of the soil but you cannot level the underlying firm surface below the fluffy, rototilled soil. So you have a perfectly level top surface and a bumpy subsurface. When the fluffy soil on top of the subsurface settles (in about 3 years), it will settle down to the level of the surface below. That will leave your top surface bumpy. How this goes for you will depend on your soil. If you have a pure sand soil, then it is already settled. If you have any loam or clay in it, then it will take the full 3 years to settle. That might be a goof that comes back to haunt you, but it does nothing to negate the contribution you have made to "lawn science!"

Now I think the method needs a tune-up to make certain parts easier. Thanks for the picture of the disc roller. Never seen that tool before, either. Must be used by the pros when they sprig in a sports field.

Your wooden screed is not what I call a screed, but it is the tool I would have suggested. We have been using chain link fence instead of boards, but we started with boards. There are many satisfactory ways to level large areas. Obviously, the boards worked well for you.

Would you mind writing to me by email? I want to suggest something that cannot be discussed on this forum (forum rules). Go to my Gardenweb member page and click the link to my email. I hope it works. I see they have finally fiddled with their coding enough so that my HTML coding isn't working right.

This is definitely 'giving back' to the community. Thanks again!!

That is very impressive SimonR. Well done!

Yes, I was always a little concerned with tilling, however due to the unevenness and compaction of the entire site I had to do something to enable me to level the site by hand as I have access issues to the rear yard. Time will tell.

Thanks everyone for the kind words