Hello everyone, I hope your having an awesome 4th of July!!!
With that being said here is my problem/problems I'd love some input on. First off I'm a complete rookie on anything that involves dirt and stuff growing out of it and not afraid to admit it :) but I'm trying my best to learn as fast as I can and have spent hundreds of hours researching do's and dont's of flowerbed and soil preparation for them and the lawn soil before starting our project. Our soil here is thick blackland goo lol so knowing that wasn't a good soil to start with for lots of reasons and having a 95 horse tractor it was a no brainer that I was removing some dirt. I removed the top 18"s of blackland dirt and replaced it with good topsoil adding some compost to it and tilling it all in good and leveling it out. Their is a good slope to it from the house to the street so drainage issues were not a concern and then we were ready for the first batch of sod. I ran the sprinklers on it for 2 days periodically getting the new soil good and moist down deep preparing for the sod. I then ordered enough sod the first time which is Bermuda TIF 419 to do one section having it all installed within 7 hours of it being cut and having soaked the soil good before laying it. I watered it as it was being laid and after completed and started watering 30 minutes in the mornings and afternoons thereafter. We then did this same process on the next section and started watering the same. After roughly 3-5 days it started turning slightly brown and I was panicking, I talked to the sod farm and they thought I was watering it to much so I cut it back to 15 minutes each time and I "Double Checked" with them to confirm I wasn't to fertilize it for 30 days and he said no. Fast forward 6 more days, the sod was looking slightly better but still pathetic so I called them back again and talked to someone else this time and he said heck no you have to fertilize it and cut back watering to every 2 days!!!! I was ticked off but said ok, not wanting to smoke the stressed yard I added Scotts Starter fertilizer being a pretty mild fertilizer and prayed. It started greening up almost immediately and is currently looking a lot better but it's been down roughly 3 weeks and I've only had to run the mower over it once at the highest setting to just hit a handful of the pieces of sod that look really really good with the rest green but not thick and just not growing hardly at all. The puzzling part to me now is the one section that's up against the house is growing like crazy now out about 2' and I had 20 pieces of sod left over and just set them up against a raised flowerbed on the last section of the lawn we have to finish and their looking awesome to after fertilizing. I'm stumped,confused and frustrated... I'm holding out finishing the final section until I figure out what I'm obviously doing wrong here.. I apologize for the book I wrote but any and all help would be so greatly appreciated!!!!!! I'm truly at a roadblock here...