A lot of lawns are coming back patchy after having such a dry summer, so how do we know if those patches are still dormant or dead? If they’re dead, what can we do?
The easiest way to tell if your lawn is going to comeback or not, is to look and see if you have any new plants starting to set new shoots from the crown of the plant or the soil surface, in any of the dead looking spots. If you do, simply give the lawn more time and it should recover on its own. If you don’t, it is possible that while your lawn was dormant, you may have had a bit of insect or disease injury that may or may not recover quickly.
What we recommend is that you give your lawn a couple more weeks to see how well it recovers and if in that time you don’t see any improvement, you may need to do a bit of overseeding in the damaged areas. We suggest using a premium grade of sun or shade grass seed (depending on the area needing repair), mixed with a bit of compost or weed free topsoil (no triple mix, the manure component may have weed seeds) to be applied this fall.
Follow these simple steps to get optimal results:
- Mix a little premium seed and dry soil in a pail or wheel barrow, it should look like a healthy amount of seed in the soil when done.
- Spread the mixture lightly on any bare spots. One or two handfuls per square foot should suffice.
- Lightly rake with a leaf rake the seed/soil mixture into the spots so any living grass is not covered by the soil.
- Keep the areas seeded moist for at least 3-4 weeks to allow germination of the new seed.
If you’re worried your lawn is beyond DIY repair, one of our professionals would be happy to stop by and create a plan of action to get your lawn back to looking green, lush and thick again! Visit our contact page here to set up a visit/estimate.
