What is Sod and What are the Best Sod Grass Varieties for Colorado?
In this video, Emerald Sod Farms owner Steve Cooper explains “what is sod” and he discusses the best turfgrass sod varieties for Colorado projects. No one sod variety works best for all applications. The amount of traffic on your sod grass from kids, and people and pets can be a big factor in choosing the best turfgrass sod variety for you. Please call us at 303-654-0202 for help in choosing the best type of turfgrass sod for your application.
Here’s our Emerald Sod Farms video:
Here’s a summary of the video:
A lot of people are asking what is sod. Well, sod is an old farming term and its in reference to the cover of the ground. Our sod, and we also want to call it turfgrass or turf grasses, is a product by which we create a cover which we hope is as native as we can to the environment around it. It is something that’s aesthetically pleasing and friendly to the environment and adds value to your property.
Sod, in the northern regions, in Colorado and the northern states, is made up of what we call cool season grasses. The most common sod or turfgrass that’s available is Kentucky bluegrass and/or different types of bluegrass hybrids that are out there.
The other type of sod that’s available are fescues and rye grasses, and also Buffalo grasses. Each one has its own unique characteristics, but all in all 90% of the grasses used in Colorado are Kentucky bluegrass.
We also have specialty grasses for golf courses which we do a lot of, but they cost a lot of money to maintain such as bentgrass.
When it comes down to making a sod selection, I want you to to look closely at your usage. If you have a lot of dogs or if you have a large family with kids or people playing in the area where you want to grow sod or maintain it, Kentucky bluegrass is your best bet. It has rhizomes, or underground runners, that once established will re-propagate and come back.
Fescue is more of a clumped grass. For years Denver Water thought it would use less water, and it does use less water, we’ll get into soil preparation and root masses, but you have to have the right type of preparation and soil to take advantage of that. If you damage the crown or the heart of the plant, it will not come back, so fescue is not the best grass variety for high-traffic applications.
Please don’t let someone sell you something that costs more to produce which it does because it costs more to produce, and don’t let them sell you something that doesn’t work. Our salespeople won’t sell you a product that will not work for for your intended needs or purposes.
Buffalo grass, it comes and goes it’s not a real viable alternative. Even cities that have tried to use it in medians and esplanades for less water usage, again they have to have soil depth for the roots to get deeper and for them to take advantage of that. It does not fare well in our type of weather, not as well as bluegrass.
All in all when someone tries to reinvent the wheel or tell you about a new product, right now until CSU or other places like Texas A&M or the University of Nebraska or one of the agronomy departments comes up with a better product, Kentucky bluegrass is your best product for most Colorado applications.
Emerald Sod Farms has been growing high quality turfgrass sod since 1987. Our farm is located just east of Denver in Commerce City, Colorado, close to the Denver International Airport. We completed highly successful sod installation projects and furnished sod for projects in Denver, Aurora, Boulder, Parker, Colorado Springs, and other communities in the Rocky Mountain Region. Call us at 303-654-0202 for more information.









