You’re looking at bare dirt, uneven ground, or patchy grass that never filled in. Maybe you tried seeding and waited months with nothing to show for it. Or you’re building new and need the whole yard done from scratch.
Here’s what changes when the site prep is done right. The ground gets graded so water drains away from your foundation instead of pooling in low spots. Soil gets loosened, amended, and leveled so roots can actually spread. Then sod goes down on a surface that’s ready for it—not hard-packed clay or fill dirt with rocks buried underneath.
You get a backyard lawn installation or front yard lawn installation that looks finished the day it’s done. No waiting. No reseeding bare patches. Just green grass that establishes fast because the soil underneath was prepped to support it.
Emerson Excavating and Trucking started as a logging operation in 1997 and moved into full-time excavation in 2020. We’re a family business—Josh runs jobs with his son, and one of them is on-site for almost every project we take on.
That matters when you’re doing lawn installation in Edinburg, NY, because the prep work is what makes or breaks the final result. We’re not a landscaping crew that rents a skid steer for the day. We own the equipment, know the soil conditions around Saratoga County, and we’ve graded enough properties to spot drainage problems before they become your problem.
We do this work for homeowners building new, renovating existing yards, or fixing areas that never grew in right the first time. If it involves moving dirt, grading a lot, or prepping ground for sod, we’ve done it.
First, we look at your property. What’s the grade doing? Where does water go when it rains? What’s under the surface—old fill, clay, rocks? That tells us what needs to happen before any grass goes down.
Next comes site prep. We clear debris, remove old sod if needed, and grade the lot so water moves away from your house. If the soil is compacted or poor quality, we loosen it and add amendments. This is where most DIY jobs fail—you can’t just roll sod onto hard dirt and expect roots to grow.
Then we install the sod. It goes down in staggered rows, tight to avoid gaps, and gets rolled to make good contact with the soil. We clean up, haul off debris, and walk you through what to do next—mostly watering on a schedule for the first two weeks while roots establish.
The whole process usually takes a few days depending on lot size. You’re left with a lawn that’s ready to use in a few weeks, not a few months.
Ready to get started?
A professional lawn installation in Edinburg, NY starts with excavation and grading. We move dirt to create proper slope, eliminate low spots, and make sure your yard drains correctly. This is especially important around here where spring runoff and summer storms can dump water fast.
Soil preparation comes next. We rototill to loosen compacted ground, pull out rocks and roots, and add topsoil or compost if needed. Roots need room to grow, and they won’t get it in hard clay or builder’s fill. We also level and smooth the surface so sod lays flat without air pockets underneath.
Then there’s the sod itself. We source quality grass that’s cut fresh and installed the same day or next. It gets laid, trimmed around edges and obstacles, and rolled for good soil contact. We also handle cleanup—all the debris, old sod, rocks, and leftover materials get hauled off.
If you’re adding flower bed installation, new flower bed design, or tree planting service to the project, we can coordinate that too. The idea is to finish your outdoor space in one shot, not drag it out over multiple contractors and timelines.
Sod typically roots in about two weeks if you water it correctly and stay off it during that time. You’ll know it’s rooted when you can’t easily lift a corner of the sod without resistance.
The key is keeping it moist but not soaked. That means watering twice a day for the first week—early morning and late afternoon—so the soil stays damp about an inch down. After the first week, you can back off to once a day, then transition to your normal lawn watering schedule once it’s fully rooted.
New York’s climate helps. Spring and fall installations root faster because temperatures are cooler and there’s usually more natural moisture. Summer installations need more attention and more water, which is why we generally recommend avoiding July and August unless you’re committed to the watering schedule.
Yes, but the slope has to be graded and prepped correctly or the sod won’t stay in place. Steep slopes need to be terraced or stabilized, and the sod often gets staked or pinned until roots establish.
We evaluate the grade before we start. If water is running off too fast or the slope is too steep for sod to take, we’ll tell you up front. Sometimes the better option is hydroseed or erosion control fabric with seed. Other times we can adjust the grade to make sod work.
The goal is to give you a solution that actually lasts. Sod sliding downhill after a rainstorm or roots failing to establish because the ground is too steep doesn’t help anyone. We’d rather have that conversation early than fix it later.
Early fall and mid-spring are the best windows. Cooler temperatures and consistent moisture help sod root faster with less stress. You also avoid the extremes—frozen ground in winter and heat stress in summer.
Fall installation, especially September and early October, gives sod time to establish before winter. It goes dormant once temperatures drop, but the roots keep growing as long as the ground isn’t frozen. By spring, you’ve got a lawn that’s ready to green up and grow.
Spring works too, usually late April through May once the ground thaws and dries out enough to grade. The risk is jumping into summer heat before roots are fully established, which means more watering and more attention on your end. We can install in summer if that’s your only option, but it requires commitment to watering and comes with higher risk of disease or fungus if it stays too wet.
Yes. Laying new sod over old grass or weeds is a common mistake that leads to uneven surfaces, poor root contact, and dead spots within a few weeks.
We strip the old sod, remove it from the site, and then prep the soil underneath. That might mean adding topsoil if the grade dropped too much, or it might mean loosening compacted dirt so new roots can penetrate. Either way, the new sod needs direct contact with soil—not a layer of dead grass acting as a barrier.
If your existing lawn is mostly dirt with some sparse grass, we can sometimes work with that by tilling and amending the soil. But if there’s a full layer of old turf, it comes out. It’s extra work up front, but it’s the only way to set up the new lawn for success.
Cost depends on lot size, how much grading and soil work is needed, and what condition the site is in when we start. A straightforward sod installation on a prepped, level lot costs less than a full site prep with excavation, grading, and drainage work.
We price jobs after seeing the property. That way we’re not guessing, and you’re not surprised when the number comes back. If your lot needs significant dirt moved, drainage installed, or problem areas fixed, that affects the scope and the price.
What we don’t do is lowball the estimate and then add costs once we’re halfway through. You’ll get a clear number based on what the job actually requires. If something unexpected comes up—like hitting ledge or finding buried debris—we talk to you before we proceed. Most lawn installation projects in this area run a few thousand dollars depending on size and complexity, but every property is different.
Yes. If you’re doing a full yard renovation or finishing a new build, it makes sense to handle the lawn, flower bed installation, and tree planting service in one project. We can design and install new flower beds, prep the soil, and plant trees as part of the overall site work.
Flower beds get edged, filled with quality soil or mulch, and planted based on what you want and what grows well here. Trees get planted at the right depth with proper backfill so they establish without settling or drowning. It’s all part of the same dirt-moving, site-prep work we do for lawns.
Coordinating everything with one contractor also means the grading, drainage, and layout all work together. You’re not fixing problems later because the lawn installer didn’t account for where the flower beds were going or the tree planting service didn’t think about drainage. We handle it all up front so the finished property makes sense as a whole.
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