Lawns are pretty resilient. We walk all over them and regularly cut them in half with a lawn mower. But the grasses in our lawns are still living, growing plants and there are a number of problems that can come up when we’re trying to grow them. They can be injured, or the growing conditions could hurt them, or they might get a disease.
Turf grass disease is a big enough topic it deserves its own post, so today let’s focus on problems that aren’t caused by diseases. If you notice your lawn grass looking damaged, dry and brittle or if it stops growing, then the non-disease problems are the ones you’ll want to check first. The good news is these problems are pretty easy to fix.
Things That Can Injure Your Grass
Spilled Chemicals and Dog Urine
Spilling pesticides and herbicides can “burn” the lawn and create brown or yellow patches. This can also happen if you spill gasoline, or if a dog urinates on the lawn, or if salt used to melt ice gets on the grass. If you do spill a chemical on the lawn clean up as much of it as you can and then immediately flood the area with water. If the grass in that part of the lawn still dies you can replant it.
Too Much Traffic
Even though grass is pretty sturdy, too much foot traffic can kill the grass. If you spend a lot of time walking through the area where your grass is dying, you might consider putting in a walkway. If you want to keep the grass, you’ll need to loosen the compacted soil by aerating before reseeding the grass. Also, redirect part of the foot traffic to other areas of the yard so this doesn’t happen again.
Improper Mowing
If you mow grass too short you can damage the plants and make it so other problems affect them more quickly. Be sure you set the mower at the right height for your type of grass. You should also keep the mower blades sharp so it cuts the grass leaves instead of tearing them.
Lawn Conditions That Affect Grass
Too Much Water
Too much water drowns grass roots and makes the plants weak and susceptible to disease, insects, and weeds. Over watered lawns are usually sickly and shallow-rooted.
Not Enough Water
Too little water and the grass will start to turn dry and brittle. If your lawn is too dry, you’ll notice that when you walk on the lawn your footprints stay visible on the grass for a long time.
Too Much Fertilizer
Lawns that get too much fertilizer grow excessively, so you’ll be mowing all the time. The grass can also look burned if you applied too much fertilizer or pesticides all at once.
Not Enough Nutrients
Not enough fertilizer can make the grass spindly, weak, and slow-growing. Also, lawns that don’t get enough nitrogen will turn light green and then yellow. If your lawn is turning yellow in patches instead of all over, though, you might need to add iron to the soil.
Soil Compaction
If the soil is too tightly compacted then there’s no room for grass roots to grow or for nutrients, water, and oxygen to get into the soil. Grass growing in compacted soil becomes thin and shallow-rooted. The solution is to aerate the lawn.
Dormancy
It’s perfectly normal for grass to go dormant, but it’s worth mentioning here because it can look like the grass is dying. Warm-season grasses turn brown and go dormant when the weather turns cold. Cool-season grass goes dormant when the weather is hot. This is normal and you just need to stop fertilizing the lawn and let it rest.
