Content
Colour and Visual Issues
- Brown patches of grass
- Bumpy lawn
- Fed my lawn with a weed & feed treatment and it's now gone black!!!
- Ripples in the lawn after mowing
- Black and red splotches on grass leaves
- Yellow patches after cold weather
- Brown lawn
- An abundance of seed stalks
- Thinning Grass
- Brown patches in the lawn
- Dead patches after dry summer
Brown Patches of Grass - What are they?
Mohammed – a very common site
Unfortunately without more information I can only give you possible causes. If you could send in a few pictures including close-ups I may be able to offer more help. In the meantime here are some potential causes:
1/ Disease: particularly red thread (May to September), dry patch (dry weather) or fusarium in late autumn and winter though this would be more straw coloured.
2/ Drought if it’s a dry summer
3/ Excess thatch causing the grass to be shallow rooted. Even a slight dry spell will cause drying and browning of the grass
4/ Insect attack – chafers or leather jacket. If the grass can be pulled up easily by hand then the roots have been eaten away by the larvae. Look closely for grubs.
5/ Browning a few days after mowing; you are removing too much grass, not mowing frequently enough, mowing long grass or have a duff mower or blade.
Hope this points you in the right direction.
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Bumpy Lawn - What can I do?
Carl – It will depend on how big the bumps are!
Small bumps and hollows under 1” high or deep can normally be sorted with top dressing.
For bigger bumps if there aren’t too many you need to open them up to add or remove soil. Once you get to large areas of bumps or very large bumps and hollows then digging the whole lot up and starting again may be the best bet. See Repairs & Renovations.
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I fed my lawn with a weed & feed treatment and it's now gone black!!!
Because I am new to gardening I was unaware that if I did not water the lawn within a couple of days, it would burn. The result being that 75% of my lawn has gone black. What can I do to solve this problem? James
I suspect you and several thousand others have done the same. Combined weed and feed products by their very nature need care and accuracy in applying which is why people give up treating the lawn because they see it as a hazardous excercise (and who can blame them)!
Unfortunately it is hard to tell at this stage what will happen as you may have killed the grass or it may just be damaged and therefore a temporary problem. Waiting to find out might also be a bad idea because weeds and weed grasses will start to take over the dead or damaged grass. I would therefore over sow with new grass seed to be on the safe side. You may need to water the lawn or wait for rain if the lawn is dry.
Hopefully you and others will take a different approach after such an experience by applying fertiliser as one treatment and a liquid weed killer as another treatment. This way as long as you have some soil moisture you don't need to water it in or worry about rain. Have a read of this section for fertilising, this section for weed killing and you will find safe lawn care products in our shop.
Finally, learn from this don't give up. You've got brownie points for trying.
Let us know how you get on.
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Ripples in the lawn after mowing - what are they?
Anthony – This is more common with cylinder mowers
Either the grass is too long, too wet or the mower is blunt or underpowered. Any one of these causes excess resistance on the blade as it rotates. This results in variations in the blade speed and therefore mowing quality causing ripples or a wave like appearance. Sort your mower or mowing practices.
There could be another cause however and this can happen with rotary mowers as well if it has a rear roller. By mowing always in the same direction you can cause the turf or underlying soil to get minor ripples in it. As you keep mowing week in week out these little ripples cause the mower to undulate causing bigger ripples to the point where you feel the mower bouncing! The moral of this story is to change mowing direction at least once a month.
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Black and red splotches on grass leaves. Wha
t is it?
Dave - Excellent photos and they tell the whole story.
The discoloration is not on the grass but on a weed called field woodrush. It's similar to grass and often goes unnoticed so an easy mistake to make. By the looks of it it is dying back which it often does in dry summers. Get down on your hand and knees and you will see that the leaves have hairs on them.
So, the good news is it is not a disease, the bad news is that it's a hard to kill weed so take a look at the help we offer on killing field woodrush.
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Yellow patches after cold weather on a Bowling Green in North East England
Following the recent cold weather we have suffered damage around the green mainly the edges up to about 4' in. The damage is probably caused by the hard frost and looks like yellowish patches in general 6-8" diameter. How can we treat this?
Hi Alan
I can pretty much guarantee you that any disease you see now in January after the snow and very cold weather is snow mould, a variant of fusarium. To reduce the likelihood or severity of future occurrences do check out whether any extra maintenance is needed to aerate and remove thatch. If you need the green throughout winter and have the apprpriate spray licences then consider systemic fungicide applications in October or November. If the disease is still active then a contact fungicide now may help.
To repair the damage in spring heavily rake the affected areas with dense shallow spiking and then re-seed. To speed germination cover the patches with polythene to raise the temeperature.
Hope that helps
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Whats the best thing to do, my lawn has gone brown in places?
Rachel
Though we're only in early June this is the driest start to any year on record. I suggest you read this FAQ to eliminate other possibilities but the chances are your brown grass is due to drought.
If the brown grass is in patches then you more than likely have a soil disease called 'dry patch' which becomes evident in dry weather. If the browning is over the majority of the lawn, particularly in sunny areas and around the edges then lack of water is the issue. You can correct this with good watering practices or leave it and it will recover naturally once conditions improve. For more information about managing dry brown lawns and drought conditions I suggest you sign-up for the Lawn Diary and Lawn Alerts in the MyLawnsmith members area.
Finally, if your lawn is suffering comparatively more than neighbouring lawns then consider improving:
- Mowing regime
- Fertilising in spring and autumn
- Aeration and scarifying
- Over seeding with drought tolerant grass seed
The following Lawnsmith lawn care products are suitable for drought prone soils and can be found in the Lawnsmith Shop:
- Yucca Wetta - water retainer, penetrant and lawn wetting agent
- Lawn Fertiliser and Liquid Feed Products
- Staygreen - Drought Tolerant Grass Seed
All the best
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An abundance of seed stalks
For the last 2 weeks (June ‘11) my lawn seems to have developed a huge number of grass stalks. Previous to this it was the best I had achieved for a long time.
I have not cut it short (summer cut) but have cut it half way between a winter top snip and the summer 15mm. It was looking lovely, lush and almost completely weed free. I fed it in April/may after using a Ferrous Sulphate mix a couple of weeks earlier and removing the blackened moss.
Now I seem to have innumerable spikes of grass stalks all over the lawn - can you tell me why and what action I need to take.
I double (cross) mowed this w/e but without lowering the rotary mower and it's got 95% of the stalks but will they return even worse?
Should I feed the lawn again?
Hi jeremy
You seem to have everything in order but unfortunately nature has caught you (and many others) on the back foot though there is nothing to be alarmed about.
The stalks are seed stems from rye grass. This happens about this time every year but it appears that this years extreme weather has forced the rye grass up and down the country to seed all at the same time rather than over a more leisurely period of time. This means hundered if not thousands of unsightly stems in the lawn many of which lie flat and don't get caught by the mower.
So, what to do?
- Firstly, they will eventually go though the lawn will look rather rough whilst they're around. If you want to reduce them, just gently rake the lawn prior to mowing to lift them up so they go into the mower blades
- More may grow over the next few weeks but by August it should be coming to an end
- If the rotary has a roller try and get your hands on one without as the roller flattens the stems
- Finally, no need to feed other than as part of your normal fertilisation plan
Just chalk this one down to the weather and nature and keep doing what you are doing
All the best
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Thinning grass
I laid my lawn last year and was the best quality turf according to the turf grower. The grass is made up of was looks like brush hairs, very slow growing. I only have to cut it once a month during summer.
The grass is also what I can only describe as baldy all over and wont grow in a couple of shady areas in the garden. What I am looking for is a very dense growing grass which I can overseed with or should I start from scratch again?
David
The best quality turf often means turf without rye grass. Your turf is therefore all fescues which are bristle or brush like grass blades as you refer. We sell the same seed as Ornamental and if you read the details you will realise it is very demanding and needs fequent mowing, generally twice a week. Infrequent mowing will cause it to thin so do read our mowing advice.
If you are not prepared for the demands of an ornamental lawn then scarify it in August to thin it out even more and over seed with Classic Lawn Seed which will give you something a little less demanding as long as you mow every 7 to 10 days on a medium high cut.
Hope that helps
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Brown patches in the lawn
Please can you advise how to treat random largish areas of brown grass patches that have appeared during the last 2 summers. The lack of water is a possible cause but adjacent areas of the lawn are rich and green. The lawn receives both autumn and spring/summer weed and feed treatments and some intense watering last summer help to reduce the problem which has now recurred. There is not pet damage or contamination from mowers etc. Would a wetting agent help?
Roger
As good a description of dry patch as I'm ever likely to see. Yes, you need a wetting agent and follow the information on how to revive the areas.
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Dead patches after dry summer (2011)
Dear Bob
I have had some fertilizers and ferrous sulphate from you which have been successful and I have now stopped using my Lawn Care Company altogether.
One of our lawns has quite a lot of dead grass in it which we think is red thread (which we have had before) although there are whole areas of dead grass(1-2 sqfoot) in size dotted over the lawn.
Can you suggest a treatment and also any autumn fertilizer I should be applying in the next couple of months.
Hi John
If the patches are the remains of red thread (blotchy looking and a slightly pinky straw colour) then they are just dead leaves and the underlying grass should be fine and will recover once rain arrives. A fertiliser will help recovery.
On the other hand if the patches are a grey dead matt of grass with fairly solid boundaries then you have a different issue though both the above can exist together. This is far more serious and is the result of a build up of thatch which has reached critical levels in some places. Inspect the whole lawn for thatch and decide whether the whole lawn needs scarifying and over seeding or just in the localised areas. Localised thatch/dead grass may be exacerbated by a condition called dry patch so check the underlying soil and treat as described.
The fertiliser to use is the Autumn Lawn Feed. Apply it after any remedial work which may include Wetting Agent for any dry patch.
All the best
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