Putting sod directly on red clay

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any experience with this?
One landscaper says that it can be done and the grass will be just fine without topsoil. I can't find any references that say it can be done.

[Anonymous]

If you're going to the trouble and expense of sod, I would put a layer of topsoil down first to give the sod a better chance of doing well. Everything I've seen has recommended this for poor soil, let alone straight clay.

[Anonymous]

You can put sod on clay, but it would be best to till in some topsoil and compost into the clay to give the sod its best shot. Whatever you do, you need to loosen the soil under the sod so the roots have somewhere to grow down. Ideal is to till tha area. Second best is to aerate before laying sod.

Actually covering with top soil isn't good either - there is still nowhere for grass roots to penetrate the soil.

Have you done a soil test to see the % of prganic matter in your existing soil?

[Anonymous]

Don't waste your money. It will die very quickly if you do this. Clay does not drain properly and has very little organic matter.

[Anonymous]

Op here. It was already done. My husband let them do it and it has been down for 5 days. I want to get the sod quickly taken up and organic matter added. Worse yet, this clay was put down over good topsoil. It is that red clay with a few small pebbles in it.

[Anonymous]

You could put sod over a concrete driveway and it would do fine, as long as you kept it watered and fertilized.

Why did somebody put subsoil over topsoil?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You could put sod over a concrete driveway and it would do fine, as long as you kept it watered and fertilized.

Why did somebody put subsoil over topsoil?

They were dumb. It was to level it up.