The weather is (oh so slowly) getting warmer here in the Northeast.  Soon it will be a great time to install a piece of sod furniture in your school, community, or backyard.

Recently, someone asked about some lessons learned, after 5 years of creating sod furniture.  Here are a few things that come to mind…

1. Always begin with good topsoil!  Everything rests on that.  Stoney, junky soil will not do.

2. When you create the form, really firm it down well before laying the sod.  We use hands, feet, and heavy tampers.  If you don’t, it will collapse some, and lose its shape.

3. When you initially install a piece of sod furniture, it will need deep daily watering, for a week or two, depending on the weather (more, of course, when it’s hot).  That is the single most important factor in getting it well established.  Watering deeply in dry spells is necessary.  Truth in advertising here:  we do not recommend grass furniture in areas with water as a greatly limited resource.  We long to see someone try out a different plant material, and want to hear from anyone who has used an alternative plant material on sod furniture.

4. We have been moving over to using a tall fescue mix on all our recent projects.  The Kentucky bluegrass mixes are fussier, need more water, and do not seem to be as durable.  This past fall, we renovated a worn out sofa using sod cut from a field, with a grass mix, as well as clovers, weeds – I think it’s going to be one our most durable to date.

5. Of course, we are all encouraging people to mow high – and that applies to sod furniture as well.  Some of the sofas that have thrived have been a bit more neglected – one in particular still looks terrific after 5 years, and it receives minimal care.

6. Did we mention water?  Avoid shapes with high peaks, deeply sloped backs, sharp edges, or places that can dry out too much – we have had to shave off higher peaks and reapply sod, simply due to drying.  Rounded forms, well exposed to light all the way around, are better.

7. Some light afternoon shade can be a good thing.

8. Alex Lovallo, our living sculpture go-to guy, installed a drip irrigation line on a piece of furniture last summer, under the sod layer, embedded it right into the upper portion.  We are all eager to see how that works out this year.

9. My current favorite is a sofa that, rather than to build up from a mound of soil as we usually do, we carved out into a hillside – cutting in, instead of building up.  You can see it in this image below, taken by Jason Koski with Cornell University Photography.  It’s at the Cornell Plantations (Cornell’s botanical garden and arboretum).  Note how it integrates into the space, is carved out of a hill, and receives some afternoon shade.  I think this could be our best yet for durability. We ran out of sod when nearly finished and had to come back to apply more (another lesson learned is to order about 15 – 20% more sod than you think you’ll need.  You can use leftovers elsewhere).

Attending to all of the above factors can make a piece of furniture last indefinitely.  That said, please consider more ephemeral earth art too; if you love the idea of sod furniture, but know that you cannot maintain it, you can still have one for a couple of seasons.  Of course, it will go back to the earth when you’re finished.  Visit the Living Sculpture site for inspiration and instructions.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 11:57 am and is filed under Living Sculpture, Project Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.