Classic Turf

We called ahead, were assured there was classic St Augustine sod available. When we arrived to purchase the product the staff was rude, told my son there was only a little of the sod as the container had dumped over and insisted we load the entire 1/2 palette while the workers looked on.

Soon after I installed the sod, it was evident that crab grass was pervasive in the first six pallets. Upon closer examination, a broadleaf weed, with pink shoots connected to white tuber roots was also found in many areas. Since I had just dug for installing a pool and brought in several loads of fresh fill dirt (not topsoil), I policed all of the weeds that came up for more than a couple of weeks to ensure that I was beginning with, for all intents and puposes, a perfectly clean base for installing new St. Augustine sod. Prior to placing my order, I asked the lady who answered the telephone (and with whom I dealt on the pricing and ordering), if their grass would be weed free, especially of nutgrass. She assured me that it would be weed free and clean. Having crabgrass present in the sod effectively ruins the entire lawn since there is no approved herbicide which can selectively control or kill emerged crab grass. There are pre-emergent herbices which are variously effective on the seeds of southern crabgrass , large crabgrass and smooth crabgrass. Therefore, the only solution to salvaging a yard with crabgrass is spot treating emerged crab grass or, even better but much more expensive and time consuming, hand weeding, and annual use of pre-emergent herbicides. After several years and thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of time, you may eventually substantially control the crabgrass. Complete elimination of the crab grass seeds from the soil "weed seed bank" is unllikely. When I called Classic Turf, the original lady I dealt with acted surprised that I had a problem but she sent out one or two additional pallet, I believe, which I ended up not having to pay for. The next time I called, they sent out about three more pallets for free, two for replacements and one to make up for prior labor cost to lay the first two pallets. At this stage I was finally able to speak to the manager who admitted that they had had some problems with some of thier sod the last couple of weeks. Also, the truck driver of the replacement sod informed me that the farm manager of sod farm from which the contaminated sod originated had been sending a number of bad batches harvested from undesirable areas of the particular farm with known problems. Even though much of the most of sod was replaced some areas were not replaced which developed problems and even the areas that were completely replaced still contained crabgrass. The manager, on two occaisions, was supposed to send "at the begining of the week" his troubleshooting expert out to make an overall assessment of the sod supplied but he did not show up either time. I had the opportunity to ask a landscaper in Jacksonville, who used to be in the sod business, about Classic Turf and he explained to me that Classic Turf has two [or possibly more than two] sod farms, one closer to Jacksonville which has poor qulaity, weed contaminated sod, and another [or other sod farms] which grew acceptable quality sod. He stated that [he believed] when a sale is made to a homeowner, Classic Turf will sell the inferior sod since the closer farm is less expensive to haul from and the fact that they figure the average homeowner does not know the difference, at least not initially. Also, they may figure that dealing with occaisional unhappy homeowners is less expensive in the short run than not selling the sod or fixing the weed control problem on the farm. I personally have spent tremendous time and expense working toward controling the crabgrass in the last year, including numerous hand weedings, spot spraying with glyphosate (A.I in Roundup) and 2-4, d, and putting out Surflan (orizalyn) pre-emergent herbicide about 1 1/2 weeks ago. It would have been cheaper in the long run if I could have made a $1,400 donation to Classic Turf, purchased the sod somewhere else with high quallity sod, and to have been able to avoid the expense and time that I have invested and will continue to invest substantially for the next several years on a tainted lawn.

see above

They did great, the price was reasonable and the delivery was on time. It was very professional.

Sod Service of Jacksonville is very good about coming here on time. They do the edging on the retention pond I have very well. They do a very good job to get the work. They are college students and this is how they get their money.