How to determine whether lawn is dead or go into dormancy?

[ohman]

Hi all, this is my first post here. Howdy from San Francisco!

There is a spot on my front yard lawn for a while now. I have been watering it like crazy, and used the Scott liquid lawn booster/fertilizer but it did not help much. Here is a picture (click on the picture to enlarge):

[url=https://postimage.org/image/5wkl17u6t/][img]https://s10.postimage.org/5wkl17u6t/20121009_095435.jpg[/img][/url]

I do see just a little bit green starting to come out from the brown area but still.. not much progress... My questions:

1. Is the grass in this area dead?? How can I determine whether it's completely dead, burnt, or just went into dormancy?? I think at some point (few months ago) I might have used too much fertilizer (non liquid) in this area and I don't know if that just burnt the grass in that area....

2. If it is not dead, should I just continue to water it and wait for it to grow back? How long would it take (for San Francisco weather) for the grass to grow back? Is there any other way that I can help it to recover faster??

Thanks in advance!!

[rainbowgardener]

If it has been like that for more than a month, in the growing season, it is dead. There is no reason for one little spot to go dormant, when the rest of the lawn is fine.

The fertilizer spill could easily have killed the grass in that spot. So could a dog urinating there, or grubs or disease. In any case, I wouldn't bother trying to revive it. Rake it out and re-seed.

[ohman]

...Rake it out and re-seed.

Thanks for your help. Yes it's been like that for over a month so I think I will assume that it's dead. By the way I'm really new to lawn care, can I just re-seed it without raking it first? It sounds like raking it might take more time plus I don't know if I can find a shovel around... thanks

[rainbowgardener]

I just meant the dead patch. Raking that patch would take one minute tops. But you need to clear out some of the thatch and make some grooves in the soil for the seed to go into. You don't need a shovel, just a rake (metal tined, not a leaf rake). Rake it well, put down the seed, cover it lightly with soil, step on it to be sure the seed is in contact with the soil and water it. Water it every day that you don't have rain until the grass is sprouted and then gradually back off the watering.