Lawn dying?

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Permalink Reply by Joe Ingersoll on August 1, 2008 at 7:16am

Well, I'm not a lawn care expert, but I've seen this happen when the lawn is over fertilized as well.

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Permalink Reply by Tommy Wags on August 1, 2008 at 7:55am

If you cut the lawn too much or too short you can burn the lawn. Also, it may be that you need to seed if it is a newer yard since it can be expected that some grass will be lost.

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Permalink Reply by William on August 1, 2008 at 9:28am

We closed on the house in December 2007 so the sod was laid in mid to late November.

I've never fertilized it, only Trugreen. They did a spring aeration and seeding in April, as well as their normal 4-6 week applications (fertilizer, weed killer, etc).

For the last month or so I have had the mower at it's highest setting to avoid dryout. Prior to that I think it was 2 notches down from the highest. About 1/2 the back yard (from the tree to the house) doesn't grow very fast at all. As a matter of fact, I've only been mowing about every 2 weeks because it doesn't grow much. The vast majority of the yard still looks good, even without growing much.

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Permalink Reply by Noah on August 1, 2008 at 9:52am

Have you tried contacting Trugreen? Typically, those kind of companies have some kind of guarantee that stuff like that will be taken care of.

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Permalink Reply by William on August 1, 2008 at 10:19am

I'm getting ready to. I wanted to get some opinions here first.

Interestingly enough, they just did a mid-year "review" of my lawn. I could only read 1/2 of what he wrote down so I need to call anyway to have him decipher his writing.

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Permalink Reply by Bravo on August 1, 2008 at 5:27pm

Possible that you have bugs. I was doing some searching on my weed issues the other night and one that looked similar to this was a insect destroying the yard. It said on sod, if you can find one of the seams in the area that is damage to double check before you had it treated, or treated it to pull up on a seam if it is insects they will be right below the sod. I found several sites doing a search for permenant weed killers. I am trying to kill off my weeds in my drive for good. I also was trying to figure out what one of the weeds in my yard was. As the one shirt you passed around at work. Don't ask just google it. lol Like I continualy say, google it. I can generally find the information that I am looking for easily. But with any search you have to be selective on how you state your issues. I will see if I can find some of the links and post them here. But my experince with true green, but on a established yard, was pretty good, when they did what they said they were going to do. The spring treatment they stated they made except they were never seen on my property except to place their marker sign. Then they tried the same on the fall treatment. Once the actual treatments were performed it did pretty good. I am mainly having weed issues in my landscaping, which I am slowly re-doing it. There are a few were my dog digs to lay, that is 3 spots around my yard. Then were I planted new seed after I re-did my outside gas lines. It does have patches similar to this but it is the type of grass does not hold up good without major waterings.

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Permalink Reply by Jack Straw on August 2, 2008 at 8:10pm

If you are using a product like Scotts, it is time released. It is still fertilizing weeks after application. You can dig down do the roots (even after rain) and still see fertilizer that has yet to dissolve. You have to wait 6-8 weeks between applications. From the pic, it looks burned slap up from fertilizer. Aerate it and over seed it this fall, water it daily..you'll be good as new this time next year!

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Permalink Reply by William on August 3, 2008 at 12:32am

I haven't applied anything other than water. Trugreen comes out every 4-6 weeks. I've heard that short daily watering is not as effective as deep weekly watering. I'm going to get Trugreen out this week to talk about it.

Jack Straw said:

If you are using a product like Scotts, it is time released. It is still fertilizing weeks after application. You can dig down do the roots (even after rain) and still see fertilizer that has yet to dissolve. You have to wait 6-8 weeks between applications. From the pic, it looks burned slap up from fertilizer. Aerate it and over seed it this fall, water it daily..you'll be good as new this time next year!

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Permalink Reply by Jack Straw on August 3, 2008 at 5:58pm

I had signed up with Chemlawn 5-6 years ago, when we first bought this house. I bought it from the bank, and the yard needed more than I could give. After 2 years, I noticed it was not much better. I watered and kept it cut at 3.5 inches..it still was weedy and unhealthy looking. I was off one day when the Chemlawn guy showed up. After talking with him, he told me he couldn't kill half of the weeds I had in my yard. He told me to get on the Scotts program, and water as needed. This clay soil around here is not you typical soil, hard and packed. I opened mine up with a thorough aeration (rented a machine for $35), reseeded and kept on it. I'm spending half of what I was with CL, and have a better lawn. The kid was honest to a fault, but he was right!

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Permalink Reply by William on August 3, 2008 at 11:59pm

I think I got the Trugreen guys' message deciphered:

Trugreen said:

Noticed a couple of weeds. Your next upcoming treatment will finish them. Some fungus in back from humidity. Lawn will grow out of. Need a fall aeration and overseed to get fungus out of roots. Water 1 inch per week.

Spruce in back - spider mites
Shrubs - spider mites
Maple - manganese, beetles, leafspot disease

So is fungus killing the grass in back?

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Permalink Reply by Michael Lombardi on August 4, 2008 at 3:04pm

William (aka Kenny) said:

I think I got the Trugreen guys' message deciphered:

Trugreen said:

Noticed a couple of weeds. Your next upcoming treatment will finish them. Some fungus in back from humidity. Lawn will grow out of. Need a fall aeration and overseed to get fungus out of roots. Water 1 inch per week.

Spruce in back - spider mites
Shrubs - spider mites
Maple - manganese, beetles, leafspot disease

So is fungus killing the grass in back?

Fungus was my first thought, but I know squat about plants. If those spots are in the shade a lot, that would lead me to believe he's right about the fungus/humidity. As for the Maple, I don't know if he's saying it needs Manganese or has too much, but I'd love to hear what they say when you call.

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Permalink Reply by William on August 4, 2008 at 4:02pm

The Maple is in the front yard. I talked to them a few weeks ago about it and they told me to get some Miracle Grow Quick Start liquid and feed the tree with that and I should see results in 3-4 weeks. I did that a week ago so we'll see. I need to get some more mulch though. Between it decomposing and the kids trampling on it, the layer of mulch is pretty thin.

I talked to a lady at Trugreen and she said they would have them come back out this week to apply more fertilizer for free to see if that takes care of the fungus. She also mentioned to wash off my mower blades after each cut because otherwise I'm just spreading the fungus. This might explain why it's spreading throughout my lawn.

If the fertilizer doesn't fix it, they can apply a fungicide, but that is not free.

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