05cavalier
Newly Registered
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 3:41 pm

Ideas to make lawn green again

Hello everyone. I am looking for some help and ideas on what caused my lawn to be brown and how I can fix it. I'd prefer to fix myself if possible.

Quick background: I bought this house right after they turned off irrigation last year and the grass was already browning. I don't have pictures from when I bought it but the yard tome doesn't look any different now than when I bought it though. The seller had already moved into another house and his son was caring for the property and he had no idea if his son was even watering let alone how much. There was no schedule set on the irrigation controller, and the son claimed he was watering for 1 hour, twice a day over a 6 zone system. Doing it manually I'm guessing it wasn't evenly watered.

So, with that, the irrigation has been on for about a month and the yard doesn't seem to be getting any better. The pictures are one side of the front yard which has 2 zones in it, each set to 20 minutes. Part of the neighbors yard is in one of my pictures and without showing you where you can probably guess the property line just based on the color and thickness of the grass.

Here's what I've done so far:
Water every morning except for Sunday based on the recommendations of a local lawn care company with a good reputation (and who also does both of my neighbors lawns which look very good). Every 2 weeks I cut the grass. The irrigation has been on about a month now so I cut and spread fertilizer the first day the water was on. Fertilizer was a bag of Scott's from Walmart spread at 3 1/4 as specified on the bag.

My thought is to grab a rake and rake the brown spots to get the dead/brown grass up and then plant more grass seed but I'm not sure if there are other options as well. If I do plant more seed, do I also need to fertilize, or just lay the seed and water? I haven't check to see if the seed bags mix in fertilizer or not. I'm not looking to win lawn of the yard here, but it would be nice to get rid of some of this brown.
Attachments
2017-05-21 13.33.42.jpg
2017-05-21 13.33.37.jpg
2017-05-21 13.33.30.jpg

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Can you update your profile with your location and zone.
Are you mowing at the proper height and are your mower blades shart?
Different grasses need to be mowed at different heights and cut higher in summer.
Since this is May, some of the grubs may be in the lawn chomping on the roots. Stressed grass will make a better target. Some grasses are tastier than others.
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7476.html

When you fertilized, did you aerate and top dress? If not, try doing that as it usually does kick start most grasses. Removing dead roots and thatch will let the water get down better and the top dressing will give the roots new soil to grab on to. If the grass is older than 7 years, this kind of renovation can help.
https://plantscience.psu.edu/research/ce ... renovation

05cavalier
Newly Registered
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 3:41 pm

imafan26 wrote:Can you update your profile with your location and zone.
Are you mowing at the proper height and are your mower blades shart?
Different grasses need to be mowed at different heights and cut higher in summer.
Since this is May, some of the grubs may be in the lawn chomping on the roots. Stressed grass will make a better target. Some grasses are tastier than others.
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7476.html

When you fertilized, did you aerate and top dress? If not, try doing that as it usually does kick start most grasses. Removing dead roots and thatch will let the water get down better and the top dressing will give the roots new soil to grab on to. If the grass is older than 7 years, this kind of renovation can help.
https://plantscience.psu.edu/research/ce ... renovation
Thanks for the reply.
Blades are sharp, but I'm unsure of the height. I mow around 2.5" and it's a little taller than both my neighbors. I think they're closer to 2 inches. I've never gone out and pulled the green grass up to compare it to images online so I'm not completely sure what type it even is. Looking at a couple site's I'm considered a "North" grass type which usually means Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, tall fescue, and fine fescue.

I didn't aerate but that may have been a good idea. The dead/brown grass isn't necessarily thick but definitely covering the dirt. I thought by watering directly after fertilizing that it would help push the fertilizer through that grass and into the dirt since it's not that thick, but it may not have. That's why I was thinking about getting a metal rake involved next time around.

The front yard is around 10 years old. The backyard has some parts around that age and some that's newer. The original owner tried to do a garden at some point and then looks like he changed his mind and filled it in with grass. I think it's a different type of grass because it's much thicker and greener than anywhere else in the neighborhood and grows twice as fast as anything else as well but I can't be 100% certain since the rest of the yard isn't 100% healthy.

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30504
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Specifying your location will make this easier, but if you are not going to say, then be more specific about the temperature and weather conditions.

I'm not a lawn person, but to me watering every morning for 20 minutes doesn't sound correct for my area. What does that even mean specifically? Have you dug and checked how much the water soaks into the ground?

If I water the lawn at all, I water during drought, and I run the sprinkler for minimum 90 minutes per area/zone for it to be any way effective for the next four days of NOT watering, but 2 hours is better and not watering the same area again for 6 days is better.

Heh. I'm a skeptic by nature and would not trust lawn company that I'm not currently employing to give me the correct information for keeping my lawn looking good. (They want you think you can't do this yourself and hire them, don't they?). And they are most likely to give you the best watering instructions for the most business they can get from you if they are working for you -- maybe it needs to be dethatched, fertilized, treated for bugs....) :>

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

if the grass is 10 years old, the reason why the "garden area" looks better is because it probably is not as compacted and they may even have amended it with some organics. I would do the dethatching, core aeration and top dressing before reseeding. I add my fertilizer to the top dressing. To green up the lawn you can add a fertilizer that contains iron.
Watering is very dependent on the soil. Most plants need an inch of rain or water a week. For grass which is a thirsty plant you would probably have to water at least 45-60 minutes twice a week. You don't want to water shallow because deep watering sends the roots deeper and makes the grass more tolerant to drought. Even though you have a sprinkler you have to make sure you have good coverage and good over lap. A machine gun sprinkler waters in an arc or circle but does not water every blade of grass for the entire time so it will take longer to soak an area than if you were using something like a rainbird. Sprinkler heads need to be overlapped to fill in gaps.

05cavalier
Newly Registered
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 3:41 pm

imafan26 wrote:if the grass is 10 years old, the reason why the "garden area" looks better is because it probably is not as compacted and they may even have amended it with some organics. I would do the dethatching, core aeration and top dressing before reseeding. I add my fertilizer to the top dressing. To green up the lawn you can add a fertilizer that contains iron.
Watering is very dependent on the soil. Most plants need an inch of rain or water a week. For grass which is a thirsty plant you would probably have to water at least 45-60 minutes twice a week. You don't want to water shallow because deep watering sends the roots deeper and makes the grass more tolerant to drought. Even though you have a sprinkler you have to make sure you have good coverage and good over lap. A machine gun sprinkler waters in an arc or circle but does not water every blade of grass for the entire time so it will take longer to soak an area than if you were using something like a rainbird. Sprinkler heads need to be overlapped to fill in gaps.
Thanks for the info. It sounds like a great place to start this week :)



Return to “Lawn Care”