Homeowners Battling Unpredictable Lawns
Homeowners are struggling with rapidly changing lawn conditions, including patchy grass, invasive weeds (crabgrass, Poa Annua, bluegrass), and difficulty maintaining desired grass types. They face challenges like unpredictable growth, ineffective preventative measures, and the need for potentially harmful treatments, leading to frustration and a sense of losing control over their outdoor spaces.
SOURCES (60)
“Summer was go great for us with a mild heat until midway through, even then we had rain until this horrific final month or so.”
“Mid TN brother, let me know how it goes. I’m planning on throwing down this weekend and just hoping we get a cool break in two weeks or so. If not I’ll overseed the bare spots again early October.”
“Welp, too late. I rushed and did it all tonight. Here’s to hoping for a slower full 2 week germination and a break from these mid 90s temps by mid September 🤣”
“After looking into it more it’s definitely closer to poa triv than Bermuda. These seed heads had 4-5 long thin panicles per stalk in random directions. Very similar looking to goose grass seed heads tbh.”
“I over seeded a week ago with After Midnight KBG. Did a bit of leveling too in spots. Definitely the season for it here in zone 4.”
“Last summer we had beautiful green grass. The Colorado winter completely killed our grass. This summer I have tried grass seed multiple times and nothing. The dirt is completely HARD. I’ve been reading to basically completely mix up the existing soil by renting something from Home Depot. Then using manure and mixing up again. Then grass seed and water. Does anyone know if this will work? Trying to keep it as inexpensive as possible! submitted by /u/Comfortable_Tea4784 [link] [c”
“Zone 6a-6b, sw ohio. I have 3 sprinkler heads. Why does this happen only in front of one of them? It doesnt seem like overpaying fungus because its very dry. Or am I wrong? submitted by /u/facelessposter [link] [comments]”
“I live in Missouri and we had someone come spray the yard for weeds. Turns out that was most of my greenery. What should I do for these areas? Some are big areas. Should I pull up all the areas so grass seed has room to grow? submitted by /u/itzamario3 [link] [comments]”
“So much wrong information here. First the crabgrass is going to die once the air temperatures drop into the 40s. It's near the end of its life cycle so it is kind of pointless to try to kill it with a chemical. If you wanted to, you could treat it with Quinclorac. If you look at the data, there's actually no reseeding interval per the university studies so it's okay to spray and then seed about a week after. The label does say 30 days but university data says otherwise. You want to a”
“But that's rye grass or something similar. Can't follow that protocol with rye grass seed. Rye grass is designed to allow coverage so you can seed with better grass once its established.”
“Im also in Nashville and putting down fescue last weekend of September. But I’ll be honest I might switch over to Bermuda in May. This summer was brutal.”
“I live near Atlanta, GA and just got my yard cleaned up. We went with hydroseed and the contractor hired another company to do this. I’m worried that it’s not going to fill in enough. They keep reassuring me that the company they hired does a great job and have used them in the past and they do great work. The company I hired has seen the yard and doesn’t see any issue with the density of the application. Am I overreacting? I don’t have any experience with hydroseed other than using Google to re”
“Location: Maryland It stays green during drought and doesn't grow as fast as the fescue around it. It also feels somewhat spongey and soft. submitted by /u/ItsHampster [link] [comments]”
“This is the yard at the house I’ve been renting for 2 years. Entire lawn looks like this. The lawn being more weeds than grass never really bothered me because it wasn’t mine, and as long as I keep it mowed it doesn’t look too bad (doesn’t look too good either). However I’m now in the process of purchasing the house from my landlord and am looking to get a game plan together. I’m willing to put in effort to get this back to neat, thick grass. Is there hope here? Or am I looking at ripping it all”
“Is there a way to tell if theses clumps and mounds of dirt are being caused by a ton of earthworms or something way worse. It’s causing a mess in the shaded areas of my lawn. I’m in Atlanta Georgia if that helps. submitted by /u/Flat_Rice9042 [link] [comments]”
“Not an expert but that looks like Crabgrass that has gone to seed? First hard frost will kill it but you will need to apply pre-emergent next Spring to prevent the seed from germinating. My neighbors yard is now 80% Crabgrass, it's awful. This time of year I go along the property line and pull and seed to prevent it from advancing into my yard. Pre-emergent in the Spring keeps it out of my yard for the most part.”
“Mine looked worse than that when I started, but Bermuda is awesome at filling back in. Not to worry. But you will not see a lot of recovery until next season, depending on how much heat you have left this year. Thebermudabible.Com has all the answers to get you there. Hopefully none of your seeds survived. Two different types of Bermuda will look weird forever. Also compost after aerating if you have bad clay soil like me, not topsoil. Watering twice a week is fine, ideal even. Depending on how”
“Depends on how dense the grass and how your soil is. Shady areas and wet soil, give it more time or else you will press them together and they will die. If its dry youre save to go after day 10 ish considering you used a parennial ryegrass. Only use manual lightweight mower that collects the clippings. Cut when its dry, including the soil.”
“There are a few small patches of fescue or bluegrass mixed in with my Bermuda from when I put the wrong seed down a few seasons ago. How can I kill it without hurting my Bermuda? In so cal submitted by /u/Gaymface [link] [comments]”
“I am in Utah. We recently bought a new house and are getting dead patches on our lawn. Our lawn seems to be getting enough water and I can’t figure out why this would be happening. These are all in our front yard and around our driveway. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. submitted by /u/PlaneDiscussion5474 [link] [comments]”
“Scalped my Bermuda hybrid yesterday. First time scalping in summer. How soon can I put down my last fertilizer application for the season? How quickly can I expect it to green up again? Still expecting low to mid 90’s temps for the next month or so (in El Paso, TX) submitted by /u/ivan_t_23 [link] [comments]”
“Zone 7b west Texas. severe drought conditions. I can only water twice a week. This is what my backyard looks like after a month of work. It’s a major improvement from when I moved in last month- pigweed everywhere, every other weed you can think of, ants everywhere, tons of dead matter from being vacant for over a year, fresh trenches from plumbing work. Right now my plan is to put a prodiamine pre emergent down mid September and water it in with some hose-end 10-0-10 to try and strengthen what”
“Can I dethatch this and or use a scarifier? submitted by /u/rvajazzhead [link] [comments]”
“NC, zone 8a Missed my pre-emergent window this spring and had a bunch of crabgrass, bermudagrass, and random weeds pop up through my yard that have spread like wildfire. I have pylex, drive xlr8, triclopyr, and mso surfactant on the way that should be here this week. Was wanting to overseed with kbg probably late September to mid October, as soon as the 90 degree but feel like 105 temps go away. Additionally I was wondering if instead of overseeding, if I should just feed and do pre-emergent for”
“Yes i know you don’t over-seed in spring. I just happened ro have time and did other work like aerating, dethacthing, top dressing, and soil testing. It’s still 90 degrees on some days here and we all of a sudden haven’t had rain for two weeks. I’ve been watering it 15 minutes minimum twice a day for a week and a half now. I’m going to switch that to thirty. When the weather gets sub 80 regularly I’m going t to pre-germinate seed, and do all the other things again (aeration, dethatching, reseedi”
“Hi all. First, thanks for the help. I have a few bare spots in my yard that I'm wanting to have grass grow in. I have a fescue yard. Last fall, for the attached picture, I aerated, laid down new top soil, seeded, covered with straw, and setup a watering routine for the bare spot in the picture. The grass grew in well at first but the growth was stunted at about 1-2 inches in length. The grass then died off this year. I'm planning on seeding this area again this fall. I have someone that”
“Sounds good. So just keep watering or increase water until it cools down? I just don’t want to go past over seeding season and then realizing that isn’t going to recover.”
“Last September i did a complete lawn renovation of my front yard. I used United Seed with a blend of tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass. I am in western NC zone 8. As you can see from the pictures one side of my front yard has a huge oak tree and the grass is barely growing. on the other side of the yard ... no oak tree and the grass is growing great without any problem. I do have a sprinkler on it as I try to water enough with the large oak tree probably soaking up a lot of it. If I water too m”
“You’ll need to wait at least 3 weeks after triclopyr, I usually shoot for 4-5wks. So you’re looking at the end of Sept for seeding which will be fine.”
“I recommend Resilience II from Twin City Seed Co. You have to order online and it SEEMS to be more expensive but actually it is not. Big box seeds are 50% clay (in the coating) by weight, so once you factor that in, 25 lbs of pure seeds at $93 is pretty much the same as 40 lbs of coated seeds at $67-$100. Just don’t use too much seeds (3lbs/1,000 sq ft for overseed, 6 for bare ground), it won’t look thick through the winter, but more of the turf overall will survive longer in the summer because”
“I’m embarrassed to show what my back lawn has become. After a very dry summer last year in the Greater Toronto Area and no watering (never have), this year the grass has practically been decimated, leaving nothing but weeds and dirt. Being a new dad as well it hasn’t been a priority, but at this point I feel like I need to find some time to deal with it It’s a small area, how do I tackle this so it can come back strong next year? Is it even possible to fix this late in the season? Any advice is”
“I have this side strip of grass, I've been struggling to grow grass and keep it alive on the right side. On the right side I have half and quarters (12h/q I think), on the left side I have strips so I don't end up watering the house. This area is about 5-6 ft wide The left side in this pic gets 0.75in after 23 minutes The right side only gets 0.25 (and gets a lot more sun). I'm trying to seed the right side but it's gonna be a waste of time without water. Would you recommend: rep”
“Prepping for overseeding now. Scalped lawn, dethatched and aerating. Ran into a bunch of this weed. Some strands are pretty long. I was thinking crab grass but I might be wrong. Is it possible to treat this now or just overseed and tackle in the spring? submitted by /u/Ready-Worry9276 [link] [comments]”
“This is 8 days after seeding. Everything I’ve read online says to cut it once it reaches this height, so I went and picked up a push mower. I made one pass over the edge, but seeing it go so flat really worried me. I thought I’d come here before potentially destroying the whole thing. Is this normal? Is it still too weak to cut? Will it bounce back after being stepped on? Do I wait any longer or go ahead and cut the whole thing? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. London UK submitted”
“The new stuff hasn’t had time to dig its roots deep enough, so it fries the second summer hits while the established fescue is sitting on a root system that goes way down. Watering it through the first couple summers makes a huge difference, once it’s locked in it’ll shrug off the heat just like the older grass. If the landlord lets you run a sprinkler just on those spots during the worst stretches, you’ll break the cycle.”
“in ontario technically by law, residential properties are not allowed to use most if not all actually effective weed killers, best we can do that's legal is fiesta and corn meal. OP bought actual herbicides from a farmer who is allowed to use them, but using them on your home for cosmetics is still against the law, so do it at your own risk.”
“Im am also in 6b. I keep my lawn cut very low and kill and aggressive weeds like tall fescue and my zoysia has grown a ton. The tree belt i did this year had a bare area and some plugs are over 1ft in diameter. Some parts i did last year are almost solid zoysia.”
“Last weekend I tilled my hard clay on my very shaded lawn and put down 5# per 1000sq of tall fescue - there was rain in the forecast starting today for the next week but that forecast now shows no rain at all for the next ten days. I am on a well and physically can’t water more than 30 minutes at a time (spread across 5 different areas) or my well will start pulling mud from the bottom. With dry conditions pending and high in mid 90s for next ten days, should I even keep trying to water or wait”
“You gotta be more specific man. “Cool season” is not monolithic. Some places that you might call cool season Zoysia will do okay, others, wouldn’t survive at all.”
“I'm in Southern New Hampshire in a rental that I intend to buy eventually. My landlord pays for a lawn care company that does the basics, but it's up to me to seed the lawn if I want better grass. I've been seeding bare spots with tall fescue the past few years. These spots are in the sunniest area of the lawn and get a lot of heat in the summer. I chose tall fescue because the existing tall fescue already in the lawn requires absolutely no water in the summer. No amount of drought k”
“We are now just over 12 months from planting. Last summer we dealt with weeds by pulling them the best we could but this summer we just couldn’t keep up. Irrigation system added in July so there’s some scars from that, but we got some 24D and Dicamba from a farmer and the results have been annoyingly amazing. The grass was already on a good fertilizer plan with regular watering but was struggling to fight the weeds in July and early August. Now that the herbicide has done its thing the grass is”
“This has filled in a lot more than I expected over the last 12 days. There are still a few obvious thin/bare spots, but most of the lawn is now pretty well covered. Seed was put down on Aug 22 in southern Germany, roughly 85% perennial ryegrass / 15% KBG, pre-germinated for four days in a soil/sand mix. New growth is mostly around 6–8 cm, with some old grass closer to 10–11 cm. I’m thinking first mow at 60 mm today, then maybe 50 mm on monday if there’s enough regrowth. Did not apply any starter”
“Two weeks progress after dethatching and reseeding. Happy with the color and vitality. There are still some areas which could be denser. Also weeds are pulling through. I’m in Switzerland. My challenges are that the summer has bern exceptionally hot and dry and also the use of weed killers are not allowed. submitted by /u/kopaish [link] [comments]”
“The baby grass will rip out if you look at it wrong right now, borrow a leaf blower instead and just walk carefully.”
“What size tree is on the other side of the fence? Looks like the root zone is taking up all the water, you need to water that section more”
“That's general guidance for just about any herbicide. The heat stress increases chance of lawn injury as it lowers herbicide tolerance.”
“Those are weedy grasses i think not crabgrass. The weedy grasses i just spray with glyphosate the other weeds some sort of broadleaf weed killer. Or just glyphosate everything and overseed. If you know what grass type you have you could overseed now. Does it have irrigation? Top dressing with some sand/dirt might go a long way if theres any bumps or lumps.”
“Soil temps couldn't possibly fluctuate that much in such a short period of time, especially this time of year. Germination depends on the soil temperature, not air temps. What's the soil temperature right now where you live?”
“Heat from the concrete most likely. Could be something under there like more concrete or stones”
“Tooooo muccchhhh water. For sure. Also you need Pete Moss or Hay to retain moisture. You want it moist not drenched. Try a 16-16-16 fertilizer as well. Makes the seeds sprout faster.”
“Keep in mind that when your turf (sod) was harvested, it was sliced from the very top layer of earth. This severs a great deal of the grass roots and allows it to dry out. Keep it well watered. Personally I believe grass grows best from seed. It establishes its own deeper roots more easily and quickly than sod, which struggles to grow from its damaged roots. Seed is so much less expensive and if some spots do not fill in, they're easily patched.”
“Nutsedge and St. Augustine. Don’t spray anything to try and kill the nutsedge now - it’s too hot out and your grass won’t like it.”
“Night and day difference!! Also been watering 3x a week early in the morning. Trying my best to take pride in my lawn and make it look good! SC heat been cookin, we barely been getting any rain too :/ submitted by /u/YkAce [link] [comments]”
“I just moved into a new home with a small front yard. I dethatched the entire lawn and what I took out filled up the entire green bin. Must have been 10+ years since someone really took care of it. Grass is looking a little thin now with some bare spots after weeding some crab grass. Any recommendations on what to do to help thicken it up? Do I just over seed the lawn or do I use some combo seed/fertilizer product? submitted by /u/tryingtimes1 [link] [comments]”
“6b North East. Have followed much advice of this sub since I bought my first home a few years ago adding Fert/ preemergent, aeration, fall seeding etc to my new lawn routine. The last few seasons I have rented an aerator from HD and reseeded my lawn and have definitely seen good improvement from when I first moved in. This year I wanted to top dress as well so I hired a landscaper to just do both. I planned to overseed myself. Additionally I decided to finally make a play on the increasing amoun”
“Located in Twin Cities, MN. Moved into this house this winter. First photo from beginning of June. Most recent photo from beginning of September. Wondering what the deal is with the patches in the first photo followed by the bare spots in the second? Think it’s KBG but unsure. Do have an in-ground irrigation system. Happy to give more info if it may be helpful. Could this be a problem with sprinkler coverage? Just need to overseed? submitted by /u/ljv119 [link] [comments]”
“haven’t mowed these lines in nearly 3 weeks. since then Ive mowed only one other time in different direction a few spots around my backyard show similar tire marks. we are in a bad drought so nothing looks good but my tire marks are all brown. how is the weight of my zero turn that damaging? submitted by /u/DirtyOught [link] [comments]”