How to repair damaged lawn?

SammyD

     

From lush green turf it has gone to dirt.

We have a puppy who loves to dig which was expected but at some places it has died irrespectively. I suspect it’s because of the mowing when the grass was wet.

what can I do get the lush green back? Is it beyond repair now?

JacobZ

Hi @SammyD,

Thank you for your question about restoring your struggling lawn.

There are still roots there, so it should be salvageable with a bit of work. The main thing I noticed is that the soil is very compacted, possibly from poor drainage. 

The first thing I'd suggest doing is aerating the soil and top dressing. Check out How To Aerate And Top Dress Your Lawn. 

Aerating will help to soften up the soil which will allow better drainage and soil conditions for the roots to grow in. You can hire a Lawn Corer or manually aerate your soil with a Lawn Aerator.

Once aerated, apply a layer of topsoil and work it into the lawn with a soil spreader. This helps add nutrients to the soil and level out any low spots where water can pool causing issues.

At this point, you could overseed the bare patches if you were aware of the grass type. If you have a photo of it when it was a bit longer, I could try to help identify it. If we can't identify the grass type, they do spread laterally over time, but you'd need to put some focus into its care for a while.

The next step is to fertilise the lawn. Use a Fertiliser Spreader to evenly spread your choice of lawn fertiliser over the area. This will give nutrients to the grass to really kick its growth into gear.

Outside of this, regular watering combined with regular mowing at a consistent height will help promote lateral growth and thickening of your lawn. 

There's a wealth of information in the Lawn section of our D.I.Y. advice page. Have a look through some of these articles for some further information on lawncare.

Let me know if this helps and if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Jacob