New lawns installed over properly graded, amended soil by a Boerne crew led by a TCEQ licensed irrigator. Rated 5.0 by 74 homeowners.
Travis Landscaping is a design and installation company. When you call us about sod, you are calling the people who will strip the old lawn, fix the grade that killed it, blend the soil back to something grass can actually root into, and lay the pallets the same week the sod is cut. We are not a maintenance company selling an install on the side.
That distinction matters here more than it does in most of the country. The ground north and west of San Antonio is thin topsoil over limestone and caliche, and the pH runs alkaline, usually somewhere between 7.5 and 8.2. In Boerne and Fair Oaks Ranch you can hit rock at 4 inches. In parts of Stone Oak and Shavano Park you get a builder 2 inch veneer of sandy loam spread over compacted caliche fill, which drains straight sideways. Sod laid on either one without soil work will green up for six weeks on the irrigation and then thin out in the second August. We have replaced a lot of lawns that failed exactly that way.
So before we quote a square footage, someone stands on your yard, cuts a test hole, and checks where the water goes. If the answer is that the yard needs drainage before it needs grass, we will tell you that, and we would rather do the drainage first than sell you sod twice.
We install three warm season grasses. Each of them is the right answer somewhere and the wrong answer somewhere else.
| Grass | Varieties we install | Sun needed | Shade | Foot traffic | Water use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
St. Augustine |
Raleigh, Palisades |
4 to 6 hours |
Best of the three. Raleigh holds in filtered light under live oaks |
Moderate. Wide blades bruise under a trampoline |
Highest |
Zoysia |
Palisades, Zeon |
6 hours |
Handles part shade better than Bermuda, not as well as Raleigh |
Very good. Dense and springy |
Moderate |
Bermuda |
Tifway 419 |
8 hours plus |
Poor. Do not attempt |
Best of the three. Recovers fastest |
Lowest |
We do not install Bermuda in shady yards. It fails. It looks fine through the first fall, thins over the winter, and by the following summer you have bare dirt under the canopy and weeds in the gaps. If a yard has less than about 8 hours of direct sun, Bermuda is the wrong grass and we will quote Raleigh St. Augustine or Palisades Zoysia instead.
Raleigh is the workhorse here. It is the most shade tolerant St. Augustine widely grown in Texas and it is what goes into most of the Boerne yards we do, because most Boerne yards have live oaks. Palisades St. Augustine is a little coarser and a little more cold hardy. If your yard is heavily shaded and you want turf anyway, understand that under 4 hours of sun no grass sold in this market will hold. That is where we recommend a shade bed, decomposed granite, or artificial turf.
Zoysia is the grass people fall in love with in a display yard and then regret if nobody warned them it establishes slowly. Zeon fills in beautifully and is very fine bladed. It also costs more per pallet and takes longer to knit. We are happy to install it. We just want you to know that going in.
Existing turf and weeds get sprayed and given 10 to 14 days to die, or, when the timeline does not allow that, the old lawn gets cut out with a sod cutter and hauled off. Skipping this is why Bermuda comes back up through new St. Augustine. It will come back up through new St. Augustine.
We re-cut the fall away from the house. The number we work to is roughly 6 inches of drop in the first 10 feet from the foundation, then a minimum of about 2 percent, which is around 2 to 3 inches per 10 feet, across the rest of the yard. Low spots that hold water get filled and tied into a drain if there is nowhere for the water to go. Sod does not fix a birdbath. It just hides it until the grass dies in it.
We bring in 2 to 3 inches of a screened topsoil and compost blend and till it into what is already there. On the caliche lots this is not optional. Roots have to have somewhere to go, and a half inch of sand under the pallet is not somewhere to go.
Sod goes down in a running bond pattern with the seams tight and staggered, cut in around beds and hardscape, then rolled to press the roots into contact with the soil. Slopes get staked. We order sod cut the same day or the day before it is laid, and it goes down within about 24 hours of arriving. Sod that sits stacked on a pallet in July heat is already cooking in the middle of the stack.
Before we leave, Elijah Washington, our TCEQ licensed irrigator, license LI0029636, checks head spacing and coverage across the new turf and sets the controller for the establishment schedule. Most failed sod installs we get called out to look at are not sod problems. They are coverage problems: a head buried by the previous crew, a zone that runs four minutes because that is what it ran for the old lawn, one dry corner where two heads do not quite meet.
Most residential lawns are a two day job for a crew of three to five. Bigger properties, or ones that need drainage work first, run longer, and we tell you which one you have before we start.
This is the part that gets skipped, and it is the part that decides whether your lawn lives. New sod wants water every day for its first week or two. Both water utilities here restrict landscape watering to one day a week in the stages they have been sitting in. Those two facts have to be reconciled before the pallets show up, not after.
SAWS publishes an establishment schedule for new turf: about half an inch per day in week one, split into a quarter inch in the morning and a quarter inch in the evening; half an inch per day in week two, applied all at once so the roots chase it down; then half an inch every two to three days in week three and every three days in weeks four and five.
SAWS also grants a new landscape variance that allows Monday through Friday watering for up to five weeks from installation, during the allowed hours. Read the fine print with us: as SAWS writes the rule, the variance is for new construction meeting their WaterSaver landscape requirements, and projects that add plant material to an existing landscape do not qualify. If you are replacing a lawn at an existing house, plan on hand watering, which is allowed any day and time with a hose end nozzle or bucket, to bridge the gap. Also plan on a larger water bill for a month. SAWS says so themselves.
Boerne has been in Stage 2 since August 2023. Sprinklers run one day a week by the last digit of your street address, 0 or 1 on Monday through 8 or 9 on Friday, from 7 to 11 a.m. and 7 to 11 p.m., with no weekend watering. Hand watering with a hose or bucket is allowed any time. Fines run up to $1,000 per violation, so this is not a rule to guess at.
What we actually do about it: we time installs so the sod goes down early in the week when the forecast allows, we set the controller to the establishment schedule for your utility and stage, we hand you a written watering sheet for weeks one through five, and we tell you honestly if the month you want the job done is a month we would not want to be establishing sod. Late spring and early fall are the easy windows. July installs work, but they are less forgiving and they cost more in water.
Stay off it. No mowing until the sod has knit down, which is usually 2 to 3 weeks, and the first cut comes off high with a sharp blade.
These are typical ranges, not a quote. Every yard prices off access, square footage, how much of the old lawn has to come out, and how much soil we have to bring in.
For a sense of scale, a 3,000 square foot back yard in Boerne getting a full replacement in Raleigh St. Augustine generally lands in the mid four figures. A small front yard patch-in is a few hundred dollars. If your budget is fixed, tell us the number first. We will tell you what it covers rather than designing something you have to cut in half.
We do not charge for the estimate and we do not send a salesperson.
We are 8 minutes from downtown Boerne, on IH-10 at Scenic Loop Road, which means we are on your street the same week and back the following week to look at how the sod is taking. We have been doing this since 2019, we are BBB accredited, and 74 homeowners have rated us 5.0 on Google.
The licensed irrigator on staff is the part people underestimate. In Texas, irrigation work is regulated by the TCEQ, and a lot of the sprinkler work that gets done alongside sod installs in this market is done by people who are not licensed to do it. The license held by Elijah Washington, LI0029636, means the coverage over your new lawn is checked and adjusted by somebody the state has tested, and that anything we touch on the system is done legally.
We install sod in Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch, Helotes, Leon Springs, The Dominion, Stone Oak, Shavano Park, Hollywood Park, Alamo Heights, Terrell Hills and the northwest side of San Antonio.
Expect roots into the soil in about 2 to 3 weeks and full establishment in 4 to 6 weeks, assuming the watering schedule is followed. Zoysia is on the slow end of that. Bermuda is on the fast end.
For most yards here, Raleigh St. Augustine, because most yards here have shade from live oaks. Full sun back yards with dogs or kids do better in Tifway 419 Bermuda. Palisades or Zeon Zoysia is the middle answer for a fine, dense lawn with moderate shade.
Yes, and we do it every July and August. It costs more in water and it is less forgiving of a missed watering. Late spring and early fall are easier windows.
About half an inch per day for the first week, split morning and evening, which is the schedule SAWS publishes for establishing new turf. Then it tapers to half an inch every two to three days by week three.
Hand watering with a hose end nozzle or bucket is allowed any day and time under both SAWS and Boerne rules, and that is how most existing homes bridge the first two weeks. Inside SAWS, a new landscape variance can allow weekday sprinkler watering for up to five weeks, but as written it applies to new construction meeting WaterSaver requirements, not to replacing a lawn at an existing house. We will tell you which situation you are in.
After it has knit down, usually 2 to 3 weeks. First cut high, blade sharp, and do not bag the first two mowings.
No. It has to come out. Sod laid over living Bermuda or old St. Augustine grows through, and you will be looking at two grasses in the same yard by the following summer.
Yes. Coverage gets checked on every sod install by our licensed irrigator, and repairs are quoted separately.
If the yard ponds, fix that before the grass goes down.
Coverage checked and controllers set by a licensed irrigator.
For the shaded side yard where no grass will hold.
No charge and no salesperson. Someone comes out, looks at the yard, and tells you what it needs. We work in Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch, Helotes and northwest San Antonio, Monday to Friday from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
28991 IH-10 W, Suite 104, Boerne, TX 78006
travislandscapingtx@gmail.com
