If you want the property to be usable as quickly as the new house, and children's feet (accompanied by pet paws) would be hard to keep away from young lawn seeds anyway, laying turf is the only sensible alternative. If time is short, the turf should be laid as soon as possible upon delivery. It's actually logical to commission the installation at the same time as the turf; but not always the best solution. Find out below why turf is often best laid on your own:
Rolled turf including installation
Costs with sample calculation:
- If the installation is ordered when you purchase the rolled turf, 100 m² of rolled turf will cost an average of around 1000 €
- Playing turf is laid for approx. 9.50 € per m², sports turf from 10.00 €, Mediterranean lawn from 10.50 €
- Premium lawn costs at least €11.00 per m²; Special lawn mixtures with herbs or for playing golf etc. can cost even more
- Laying is usually carried out from an area of 50 square meters (or a minimum order amount of 500 €)
- However, the turf suppliers usually only offer installation within a certain distance from their company headquarters
- The price should include: rolled turf, delivery, preparation, rolling, fertilizing and laying
- The disposal of the old lawn is often included in the price or available at reasonable prices
- Pay attention to information about where the turf is raised (even from suppliers nearby who do not always raise the turf on site)
- If the climate where the grass is grown is noticeably different from the place where it is laid, this can play a role in its growth
- The garden center nearby provides the most realistic comparison price
- She doesn't always produce turf herself, but knows where to get good quality turf
- And would also be happy to take care of the installation on site, including the necessary preparations
- Which don't necessarily have to be done in one day, which is usually not a disadvantage:
Tip:
Help in finding quality suppliers is offered by the German Rollrasen Association, www.rollrasen-verband.de/members and the Association of European Turfgrass Producers, turfgrassproducers.eu/growers-and-suppliers.
If you order rolled turf from a supplier who offers installation at the same time and lawns up to 800 m² (incl. If the lawn is milled, leveled, rolled) within one day, it usually happens as follows: The new lawn is delivered, the old lawn is milled off, the area is leveled/rolled and the new lawn is put on the lawn in almost the same operation surface applied. You can do this, in some football stadiums without light, air and real ground it is done 6 times a year because the turf is “used up”. However, if you don't want to change the lawn quickly, lawn experts actually recommend a more comprehensive soil preparation:
Decoupling the installation from the purchase of the turf
If you decouple the installation from the purchase of the rolled turf, you will pay an average of €400 for 100 m² of rolled turf including delivery (although it should be clarified exactly to where this delivery will take place if the heavy rolls of turf are in the back of the garden have to be promoted, this is a separate work step of considerable scope). This means you have around €600 available for the installation, but you have to do it or organize it yourself. There are two ways to do this these days:
Prepare the ground for laying turf
If you hire a local gardening company or prepare the soil for installation yourself, the classic procedure looks like this:
- The ground preparation is not done on the day the new turf is delivered, but is planned long in advance
- The subsurface is examined, then the appropriate course of action will be discussed with you
- On building plots it starts with the application of topsoil
- Which has to settle for several weeks to months (depending on the subfloor)
- Then follows the soil analysis, which determines the currently available nutrient content
- If organic fertilization is planned (which is recommended), compost is applied in the fall
- With conventional lawn fertilization with artificial fertilizer, starter fertilizer on the day of laying is not always enough
- Soil analysis values often require nutrient pH corrections that should be made well before laying
- Old lawns often need to be removed on garden plots that are already in use
- That cannot be done on the day the turf is delivered
- The area is at least thoroughly dug up after the sod has been removed
- If it had different vegetation, sand is often mixed in to loosen the soil
- And the garden soil also often needs nutrient or pH corrections
- During all these preparations, stones, root residues, etc. are collected from the later lawn area
All of this takes time, but honestly: If you're not moving again after a few years anyway, you should lay the turf in a soil that really deserves the name.
NEW: Laying turf in sandwich construction
If the new turf is to be laid on an old, otherwise smooth lawn, you may be able to use a new process that has just been developed:
The new turf is applied directly to the old turf, a much simpler process. Schwab Rollrasen GmbH, Haid am Rain 3, 86579 Waidhofen, has spent a long series of tests developing a “sandwich construction” method in which the new lawn is laid directly on the old lawn without any prior tillage. A great development that was “approved” by independent experts in autumn 2016, which demonstrably works and is really simple:
- Mow old lawn short
- Unevenness on the surface with fine topsoil or lawn substrate happens
- If applicable. Fertilize and moisten the soil
- Laying new turf on the old lawn
This method is probably not necessarily suitable for a “colorful field” with all kinds of plants and hills (please ask Schwab GmbH for probability forecasts, they are the only ones who have enough experience with the new process). Sometimes you will have to stick with traditional soil preparation.
Laying turf on prepared ground
Rake thoroughly again shortly before delivery and compact the leveled area (the easiest way to do this is with a lawn roller, which you can rent from a hardware store or garden center). Only if you proceed carefully here will the lawn look evenly green later.
The organically fertilized area is now fully prepared; If artificial fertilization is planned, the special starter fertilizer is now applied. On the morning of installation, the smooth-rolled surface is lightly raked up again to remove the last unevenness, then we can get started:
- Moisten the substrate if necessary, the soil should be slightly moist
- Start laying in a corner, roll out the first strip from there
- Place lane by lane closely together
- Crop, e.g. B. curves is easiest done with a kitchen knife
- Stagger the lengths so that the seams disappear quickly
- Have a few boards ready that you can place on the already laid area if you would otherwise have to walk on the lawn
- That would leave footprints in the ground that would be visible for a while
- After laying the turf, carefully roll it so that it comes into good contact with the ground
- If the rolled turf was laid to fix a slope, the turf should be fixed at the upper end of the slope with stakes or boulders
- This protects the first tender roots, which are then exposed to less downward pull during the intensive watering at the beginning
When the turf is in place, your attention should first be focused on watering:
It needs a lot of water to grow, 15 – 20 l per m² when watering immediately after laying, and then whenever “the first crumbs of earth dry”. Depending on the weather, subsoil and lawn, it takes up to 14 days until the lawn sod has grown into the ground with the first fine network of roots and irrigation can be slowly reduced to normal levels.
Tip:
The question about the quality of the turf is often lost in questions about price and installation. In the long term, however, the quality of the lawn is actually the decisive feature and one that you should definitely take care of. Keywords: Lawn seed mixture, standard seed mixture, Research Society for Landscape Development and Landscaping e. V. www.fll.de, Schwab Rollrasen GmbH offers under schwab-rollrasen.de/products over 300 variations of rolled turf and a “lawn consultant”.
