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Have you ever found yourself standing perplexedly at the edge of your lawn trying to figure out why grass grows where you don't want it, and doesn't grow where you want it? Or perhaps you have healthy grass in a certain spot, but you want to put in a flower bed and you would like to use that healthy grass elsewhere.
Never fear, help is here. There are a few tips and hints to help you remove your turfgrass as sod and move it successfully to another spot. Read on!
Removal
Removing your grass in the form of sod can be a little tricky. You need to balance your need for substantial roots left in the sod with the need to not take all of the dirt away. What is more, you need to remove the sod in such a way that will facilitate its replanting elsewhere.
The tools you will need are a hand edger (the half-circle ones are best), nice sharp spade and a wheelbarrow. You will also need gloves and some energy and time.
The first step is to use your hand edger to outline the area you want to take up. This is much like putting a puzzle together; you want to delineate the area you are working with so you have an idea of the big picture. Once you have outlined the area of turfgrass to be removed, use the edger again to cut that area into small, regular-shaped and manageable pieces. Each piece can be about eighteen inches long and about as wide as your spade.
If you have done this first step right, you now have a delineated area that is criss-crossed with regular cuts into the grass. Your next step is to use your spade to get under the turfgrass and cut the pieces out. The rule of thumb is to cut about as deep as your thumb is long! In other words, go for two to three inches down from the surface of the soil. If you are good with your spade, you can just swing it in there with lots of force and slice away. If you are not sure you can get the right depth with a controlled swing, jab the point of the spade where you want to cut, lower the spade handle so the spade is parallel to the ground, and then use your foot to do the cutting.
With some practice you will find that you can cut up a piece of sod in just a couple of minutes. When you have a piece ready to go, set it in your wheelbarrow with the grass up. The next layer of sod should go in with the grass down and soil up. Your goal is for soil side to be on soil side.
Now that you have a load of sod to re-plant somewhere, here's what to do.
Planting sod
Planting sod is a simple matter of ground preparation, well-planned placement and watering.
To prepare your ground, disturb the top couple inches of soil with your spade and a stiff-tined garden rake. Get the ground even and smooth, then moisten it. You don't need to get it muddy, just slightly wet.
With your ground prepared, you can place your sod. You should have some regular shaped pieces, so make sure you use straight edges on your sod against straight edges on your planting area. Also keep in mind that you want to lay the sod rectangles in a brick-laying pattern: staggered so you don't end up with regular columns of sod. As you lay the sod, work from on top of a wide board that is laying on the sod. This will help you keep the prepared soil ready for the sod and without footprints and will also help to pack the sod down.
With your sod on the ground, you want to pack it down a little more, so take your wide board and place it on the sod. Walk around on that board, stepping heavily. You can also pack the sod with a roller, but these tools are expensive to rent.
Now water. Your sod needs to stay moist for the first several days in order to reduce shrinkage and browning. Try to keep foot traffic off the sod while it takes. Finally, some people like to do some seeding on newly-planted sod in order to reduce the chance of having visible seems. This is a perfectly valid finishing touch to undertake.
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Author Bio Box: Jared Garrett
 http://www.helium.com/user/show/45690
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